Chrome is finally going after the extensions that hijack your new-tab page

You know the problem even if you don't know its name. You open a fresh browser tab and instead of a blank page or Google you get some search box you never chose, feeding your searches through a site you've never heard of. Worse, when you go to remove the extension behind it, Chrome won't let you - the option is greyed out. Google is now building a fix for exactly that.

The nasty trick these hijackers use is to pose as your boss. Chrome supports "enterprise policies" so a company's IT team can force-install approved extensions on work laptops. Malware abuses that by quietly writing those same policy keys onto an ordinary home PC, so Chrome believes an administrator installed the extension and blocks you from touching it. As BleepingComputer reported on August 2, Google's coming protection will block policy-installed extensions from overriding your new-tab page or default search engine on unmanaged home machines (Windows and macOS), remember the ones it blocked, and hand control of any wrongly "managed" extension back to you. Legitimate workplaces keep an escape hatch for extensions they genuinely need.

The honest caveat: this isn't live yet. It's still under review in Chromium as of early August, with no firm release date - Google plans to switch it on by default once it's approved. So it's good news coming, not something to wait around for if your browser is misbehaving today.

If your new-tab page or search has already been hijacked, you don't have to wait for Google. Tendvane's Repair wizard has a "browser hijacked" fix that clears a redirected homepage and search engine and undoes a sneaky proxy, so you can take your browser back now.