Google Chrome Virus???

Anthony_195

Prominent
Mar 29, 2017
9
0
510
I just went to google.com and searched for “chrome download’ . I clicked the first link that brought me to a page called something like chrome2018.net. After downloading and installing , chrome downloaded in Spanish . Also there was an application called Chromium downloaded as well (blue chrome logo) is that even a thing? I think I downloaded malware !! It took me like 10mins but I deleted and uninstalled both applications. I also got a virus warning. I went back and looked at the the search and saw that this site was via an ad. I can’t believe that the first search on google.com for “chrome download” would be an ad with fake “chromium” malware. If that is the case. I sure haven’t heard of a blue chromium application. I’m now running a virus scan but I am concerned there might be some other infection on my computer. I’m not aware of them all Trojan,spyware etc. I’m using windows defender. This is disappointing because I literally just reinstalled by OS on a fresh brand new SSD. Should I secure erase the drive and start over just to be safe? Not sure what to do ... please help
 
Solution
In most tests, modern SSDs did not tend to show any significant slowdowns due to write cycle accumulation. They simply died. Little to no warning, so keeping an eye on drive health is important and as I said, keeping stuff backed up is always a good idea because any drive can die at any time with little to no warning. Doesn't matter if it is old, new, SSD, SSHD, HDD, tape, whatever. Even optical media like DVDs have an expiration date and won't last longer than usually five to ten years. Blu ray disks are supposedly good for up to fifty years, but since none are remotely close to that old, who knows.


By the time you are likely to see any significant wear causing slow downs, you should probably have already been planning for a...
chrome2018.net is definitely NOT an official Google Chrome download site. There is only one official Chrome download site, and that is google.com.

You can download the Chrome browser here: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/features.html?brand=CHBD&ds_kid=43700010857936963&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9crJ8YmJ2QIVlGV-Ch0S5gaREAAYASABEgKaY_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CLq3y_uJidkCFYUMPwodbvQCFg


And it's probably a good idea to do a clean install if you are pretty sure you installed malware or any other type of persistent infection. While most of them CAN eventually be eradicated, it usually takes longer than simply doing the clean install, plus then you can be sure the infection is gone.

You can do a clean install as follows.

Windows 10 Clean install tutorial
 

sacrificeking

Prominent
Feb 3, 2018
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510
That's definitely not the real chrome download site but the blue chromium application should really be a browser and not a virus. That should be the browser from chromium open source project from which the Google Chrome is built on. But the installer could have installed something else along with this which could be a virus.
 

Anthony_195

Prominent
Mar 29, 2017
9
0
510
I basically ended up with google chrome in Spanish and the chromium app. no viruses under windows defender were detected ,I don’t want to use up write cycle with my ssd as I’m concerned it will slow down .
 
You CAN factory reset, if you have the restoration partition, but honestly, most people (And EVERYBODY who knows better) tent to NOT do that because the factory installation usually sucks buttocks. Every one I've ever seen was filled with unnecessary and in many cases, detrimental, bloatware, pointless crappy "optimization" applications that almost bog the system down to the point of being at a stand still waiting for anything to happen.

If you have never used your system with a clean install, you have no idea how much faster it will run without all the factory injected crapware, senseless and mostly non-functional trials and bloatware, and of course their own self defeating system settings that are not aimed at making the system perform better but instead are designed to make the system less likely to be boofed up by the average person who honestly has very little sense of how to use the system in the first place.

There is very little, if anything, included with the factory reset that cannot be found for free elsewhere if needed. Any applications included for free can usually be downloaded separately or alternatives can be found that usually work a lot better, with less system resource overhead, than what the OEMs plop down in there anyhow.

Up to you. You can do a factory restore if that's what you feel you are most comfortable with, but I'd recommend doing the clean install unless you know for certain that there is an application included with the original package that you will not be able to replace and absolutely have to have. Keep in mind as well, most of those trials are time dated, and may not even work if they had already expired previously. I just don't see the point of purposely reinstalling the mess that comes on 99% of systems, when a clean install costs you nothing extra to do and results in a much more streamlined installation, fresh partitions, and a lot more free space on your storage device as the end result.
 
SSD write cycles will be higher with a factory reset or restore than with a clean install, and besides which you would need to write like 20 GB per day, for years, before the health of your SSD would be compromised unless you have either a very old or very cheap model. By comparison, the entire Windows installation is likely the most you will ever write at one time to your drive and in total is not more than 40GB from the start, and after cleanup will be likely to be around only 20-25GB on average.

It is a NON-concern unless your drive already has many years of writes and is in bad health. If that IS the case, you should be looking at replacing it anyhow AND if you do not have a backup in place to save important data, which you SHOULD have done already long ago, you need to do that as well. When people lose data because of a drive failure, it is nobody's fault but their own AND it WILL happen to 100% of people who do not have a backup drive or other plan in place.

Not that it is a concern, because it's not, but what is the model of your SSD?
 
I assure you that if your system was prebuilt, unless it came from a boutique vendor like Sager, Maingear, Xotic or Puget, and maybe even then, that it's unlikely the OS installation is even remotely "custom" and that it does have much unnecessary "value added" software installed.

Which model of MX500 do you have? What size?
 
You would need to write 36 Terabytes per YEAR, for five years, before you would reach the expected average TBW lifespan of that drive. In perspective, that's 36,000 Gigabytes per year or 3000GB per month, every month, for five years straight, before your drive should reach end of life. Of course, that is the average and there can be other factors involved but I have yet to see any SSD I've purchased suffer death from write cycles, and I fully clean install the OS on most of them on a regular basis, every six months to a year, even for most of my clients who can't seem to keep from messing them up by either installing poor software, getting infections that can't be removed easily or other issues, and of course on my own systems.

That's on top of a lot of software installations, much downloading of various games and files, etc.

It's a NON-concern, like I said. You are just as likely to have a spinning drive fail in that timespan, and since practically speaking, very few people write 3000GB a month to their SSD, the lifespan will likely be a lot longer than five years. Electronics will likely fail before the NAND does.
 
In most tests, modern SSDs did not tend to show any significant slowdowns due to write cycle accumulation. They simply died. Little to no warning, so keeping an eye on drive health is important and as I said, keeping stuff backed up is always a good idea because any drive can die at any time with little to no warning. Doesn't matter if it is old, new, SSD, SSHD, HDD, tape, whatever. Even optical media like DVDs have an expiration date and won't last longer than usually five to ten years. Blu ray disks are supposedly good for up to fifty years, but since none are remotely close to that old, who knows.


By the time you are likely to see any significant wear causing slow downs, you should probably have already been planning for a replacement by then anyhow. It's up to you though. I can't twist your arm or make you do what consistently has proven to give the best result. And simply doing a restore of the factory image may work fine for you. That's your call. I can only tell you what has usually worked best for hundreds if not thousands of users. Plenty of people have used the restoration method too, so whatever.
 
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