Chrome earns its reputation as a user-friendly browser by giving you control over things like notifications, pop-ups, and tracking data. It’s natural to encounter a hiccup or for a feature to suddenly stop working. However, you should fix the browser when it starts opening unwanted sites automatically.
An adware or a malicious extension is mostly responsible for taking over Chrome. Fortunately, there are several solutions you can try to fix the problem. We’ll show you how to do this. Lets start.
1. Run a Virus Scan on Your Computer
To be safe, it’s helpful to run a scan using Microsoft Defender on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC. You can also use Malwarebytes to check if your PC or Mac is infected.
2. Use the Chrome Malware Scanner
Sometimes, malware and virus infections are responsible for Chrome’s tab opening problem. For this, Chrome carries its own built-in malware scanner to eliminate such annoyances. Here’s how you can get it working.
Stage 1: Launch Chrome and go to Settings. Scroll all the way down to expand the advanced settings and go to the Clean computer option.
Step 2: Click the Find button to start a quick scan on your PC.
Wait for the process to finish; Chrome will let you know if it finds any harmful apps or programs.
3. Check Extensions
Chrome is popular because of its support for extensions that are known to work seamlessly. However, some may not be updated frequently. Also, poorly crafted extensions can often cause problems and hijack malicious code to open sites automatically.
So, you can try uninstalling suspicious extensions in Chrome to see if it helps the problem.
To remove extensions in Chrome, type chrome://extensions/ and press Enter. Search for extensions that were recently installed or you no longer use and click the Remove button to delete them.
Once deleted, restart Chrome to see if the issue is now resolved.
4. Clear Cookies
Most websites these days force you to enable cookies in your browser for a complete user experience. Unfortunately, while cookies are generally considered harmless, they can sometimes carry hostile scripts that can cause your browser to behave strangely. In such cases, you can try clearing Cookies in Chrome to fix the problem. Here’s how.
To clear cookies in Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift + Delete to open the Clear browsing data menu. Now tick the checkboxes that say ‘Cookies and other site data’ and ‘Cached images and files’. Finally, click on the Clear data button.
Restart Chrome and see if it works normally now.
5. Block Pop-ups
If Google Chrome keeps opening unwanted sites for no reason, you can try blocking pop-ups in Chrome. Here’s how.
Stage 1: Open Google Chrome on your computer and use the three-dot menu icon in the upper right to select Settings from the list.
Step 2: Switch to the Privacy and security tab on your left and click on Site Settings.
Stage 3: Under Content, go to Pop-ups and redirects.
Step 4: Finally, under Default behavior, select ‘Do not allow sites to send popups or use redirects’.
6. Disable Background Apps
Background processes and extensions in Chrome help provide important information even when Chrome is not running. But they could also be the reason why Chrome randomly opens tabs. Therefore, disabling them may fix the problem. Here’s how to do it.
Stage 1: Open Google Chrome and go to Settings.
Step 2: Scroll down to expand advanced settings. Under System, turn off the switch next to ‘Continue running apps in the background when Google Chrome is closed’.
This much. Now restart Chrome and see if the issue is resolved now.
7. Reset or Reinstall Chrome
If the other solutions do not help, you can try resetting Chrome to its default settings to overcome the problem. Doing so clears all extensions, cache, and history in Chrome.
To reset Chrome, type chrome://settings/reset in the address bar at the top and then press Enter. Under ‘Reset and clear’, click ‘Restore settings to their original defaults’.
In the confirmation popup box, click Reset Settings to confirm.
Resetting Chrome deletes the browser cache and cookies, search engines, and pinned tabs.
If you want to have it all together, you can choose to uninstall and reinstall Chrome instead of resetting it. This will give you a fresh start and will also update Chrome in the process.
Block Unwanted Visitors
Unwanted sites opened in Chrome can easily ruin your browsing experience. Hopefully, the solutions above were enough to fix your problems for now and you’re back to browsing the web with Chrome.
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