Unwanted software impacts the browsing experience of millions of web users every day. Effects of this harmful software are often quite subtle—search results are modified to redirect users to other pages or additional ads are injected in the pages that users visit. But in some cases, the changes are so severe that they can make the web unusable—people are redirected to unwanted sites full of ads, and it can be next to impossible to navigate away from these pages.

Chrome already has tools to help people avoid unwanted software. For example, Safe Browsing prevents many infections from taking place by warning millions of users. But sometimes harmful software slips through.

Recently, we rolled out three changes to help Chrome for Windows users recover from unwanted software infections.

Hijacked settings detection

Extensions can help make Chrome more useful—like by customizing tab management. But some extensions may change your settings without you even realizing it. Now, when Chrome detects that user settings have been changed without your consent, it will offer to restore the modified settings. In the past month, this feature has helped millions of people recover from unwanted settings.