Removing Unwanted Chrome Browser Extensions

Note: The article assumes you're running Chrome on a Windows operating system.

Many times, an unwanted extension can cause system slow downs or make ads appear. To check what extensions you have installed in Chrome go to Settings > then chose extensions from the panel on the left side.

It will look like this:

You can see on the right side a little check box option to enable or disable extensions. This comes in handy, but what if the check box is grayed out? Many harmful extensions can do this, making it appear that you cannot remove them. If the extension doesn't have an entry in your add/remove programs list, take the following steps to try and remove it:


1. Locate the extension ID of the unwanted extension. To do this, enable Developer Mode by checking the Developer Mode box at the top right of the extensions page. This will show you the ID right below the extension. An example ID of one of my extensions is: ID: fljalecfjciodhpcledpamjachpmelml

2. The next step is to locate this ID within the Windows registry. To do this, open the start menu and in the program search box type: regedit. The program will appear in your list. Open that:

Warning: Use caution when using regedit as it alters your system

 Navigate to where the registry key is for the bad extension. The two places to look are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE, then select Policies > Google > Chrome > ExtensionInstallForcelist.

and 

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER > SOFTWARE, then select Policies > Google > Chrome > ExtensionInstallForcelist.

3. This will show you the installed extensions and most often will show you the ID of the bad extension causing the troubles.

4. In the registry key, look at the path of the key. It will point to a folder location on your hard drive. An example would be C:\\Program Data\   Leave regedit open and in another window, navigate to that location and you should find a folder or files with the same ID name that we found above. Delete the folder or file with that name completely.

5. Go back into regedit and right-click on the registry key of the extension ID that is causing the problems and chose delete.

6. Restart the Chrome browser. You can navigate to your extension list from the settings menu and note that the extension should be gone!

Great job! You've successfully killed your first malware extension within Chrome. Now you know what to do for future cases. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop me a line.




~Michael

Watching Online Videos From Different Regions Using Hola Chrome Extension

This is a post for anyone who has ever tried to stream a video online and got the message that:

This video is not available in your region.

This typically happens if you're trying to stream content from a different country such as Canada, etc.

To easily get around this, just install this simple Chrome extension that I found and you will be able to watch videos in any region.

Hola  is a really nice extension that is exactly what you're looking for. It is free and fast to install. It does require that you have the Chrome browser installed.


~Michael

Introducing Tippy$ to the Android Market Google Play Store

Proud to announce the release of my next Android app, Tippy$. A tip calculator written for the Android platform. One nice feature of Tippy$ is that it will tell you at the end how much to add onto your calculated tip to make the final bill amount even. This is nice so you can easily keep track of spending.


To try out Tippy$ grab at copy of it for your Android device at:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mkelleyjr.example.tippycalc&hl=en

As always, I appreciate any feedback or comments.

Thanks!


Michael

Generating a Text List of Running Processes in PowerShell on Windows 7

In this quick guide, I'll show you how to generate a list of the running processes on a given Windows machine using PowerShell. I'm using Windows 7 in my example.

To run PowerShell, open up the run command and type powershell then hit enter. That will open up the command line for PowerShell commands to be ran.

To generate the list type in the following command:

Type: Get-Process >> ProcessList.txt

A breakdown:

Get-Process = gets the running processes of the machine. You can run this command by itself and it show the list within PowerShell or the command line.

>> = write stream points to where the file will be written. In this example it will write the output to whatever folder location you are currently running PowerShell in.

ProcessList.txt = the name of the file we are generating

You can change ProcessList.txt to whatever name you would like just make just it ends in .txt so you have a text file.

This can be useful if you want to analyze things that are running. You can print it out or save it and check it on another computer if you think you might be dealing with a virus process that is causing a slow down.