Startpage of Chrome

I’ve been having problems with chrome since installing my fairphone4. Every time I open the app I get to see a gambling site or worse, a sex site. This is of course embarrassing when, for example, colleagues are nearby and you look up something. Mainly because I don’t visit such sites. I’ve already uninstalled and reinstalled the app but it doesn’t help. And this was from day one upon installation. Is this a known issue at Fairphones? Or am I having some kind of hacking during installation? Anyone know this problem?

I’m sure if you searched and didn’t find anything then clearly it is not a known issue.

Did you use a google account to set the phone up?

If you do and can be bothered, do a reset remove, do not connect to the internet and bypass the Google account.

Alternatively install Firefox and disable Chrome in the short term.

Hi Dirk, I had a similar experience one or two years ago also with the Chrome browser on my FP2. It seems your browser has been hijacked (Wikipedia: “Browser hijacking is a form of unwanted software that modifies a web browser’s settings without a user’s permission, to inject unwanted advertising into the user’s browser. A browser hijacker may replace the existing home page, error page, or search engine with its own. These are generally used to force hits to a particular website, increasing its advertising revenue.”).
I installed the free version of “Malwarebytes” from the Google Play Store an did a scan (took some time). This App found and removed the infected browser setting successfully at that time.

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So it could be worth a try and ensure that you have the latest OS updates installed. Additionally, I would clear Chrome cache and app data.

But to be honest, I personally wouldn’t trust that system anymore after several months with this problem and consider a factory reset. It’s hard to tell if there were any known vulnerabilities in this timespan which could have been used to further infect your device via the displayed websites. But I won’t say it’s likely, just slightly possible.

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it functions again normal. It did its trick the malware app…at this moment Thank you all for The respons.

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Thanks for The answer. At this moment the malware - app did it. :crossed_fingers:

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