Many of you may not know that Google Chrome has its own cleanup tool for finding and removing malware. The tool is useful against unwanted programs, adware and fake system optimizers that slip through the browser into your PC.
According to a Chrome source code commit, it will now include the ability to remove chrome extensions that are forced into the browser through Windows Group policies. The feature was earlier absent from the tool.
The code describes the feature as “update chrome_cleaner/chrome_utils to remove force-installed extensions.” This indicates that the Chrome Cleanup tool will now be able to detect and remove force-installed extensions. Although, it will also whitelist a number of Chrome extensions that will continue to be installed on the browser.
For those who don’t know, forced chrome extensions are automatically installed on the browser without the interaction of the user, with the help of Windows Group policies. These extensions are basically a few tools deemed necessary by the administration of the organization.
However, the same Windows policies can be misused by malware inducers. Presently, Chrome does not remove these extensions, even if it is malware. The only option for users is to identify malware through the registry.
While Google continues to work on the tool, you can head over to “HKLMSOFTWARE>Policies>Google>Chrome>ExtensionInstallForcelist” in the Windows Registry Editor to identify if any forced Chrome extension is installed on your PC.
