A couple of days ago, I started noticing a little popup when I visited online stores.. Amazon, Craigslist, eBay.. even Google keyword searches seemed to trigger product placement ads, even though I consistently use AdBlockPlus..
So I figured I’d do a little digging and report back on how to fix this new adware/malware issue, since when I clicked on the actual link in order to try to disable the add-on, it took me on a wild-turkey chase! I had no such Chrome Extension or Add-On called “ChromeReload,” which was mentioned when you tried to disable it directly from each page…
First of all, upon Googling this issue, I came up with this article, which stated that it was probably the “Translate selection” extension. I did not have that installed, so I had to find another reason why this damn thing was loading.
I did remember that Pinterest’s “Pin This Button” pinged me a couple of days ago, telling me that it was going to start advertising in-app. I guess I just assumed that if I logged into Pinterest.com it would start showing me ads… not necessarily embedding them in my searches!
Here’s how to remove the ads:
- Click to your settings in Chrome and then click “Extensions” on the left-hand side of your screen (that’s those three horizontal lines in the right top corner, or Window/Extensions will also get you there)
- Find “Pinterest button” and click on “Options”
- A new tab/screen should pop up that says that Visual Deals product search is: enabled. Simply click that “Change” button to disable it.
Now just confirm that it’s gone! Go to any eCommerce site and click on a product. If you don’t see that random popup trying to get you to visit a different site, then you should be good to go 🙂
Let me know if this works for you in the comments–or if there are other Chrome Extensions we should all be weary of!