Recently searches on my desktop Chrome browser began redirecting to http://status77.ampxsearch.com. It's not clear how that happened, since AMP is a project to accelerate pages on mobile devices, but finding a solution took some time.
A check in Chrome Settings showed that the default search was still set to Google.com and there were no redirects present. A further check of my Windows hosts file also showed no changes, and running Malwarebytes did not change the redirect. I also searched for registry changes with regedt32, searching for "google.com" with no results.
Some internet research led me to the Chrome Cleanup Tool, which simply resets Chrome to the original defaults at installation. That fixed the problem and is the same as simply selecting Reset in Chrome Settings.
The above steps are the major ways that a URL redirect can be inserted. So if a URL address is not going where you expect, checking them will hopefully save you hours of frustration.
A check in Chrome Settings showed that the default search was still set to Google.com and there were no redirects present. A further check of my Windows hosts file also showed no changes, and running Malwarebytes did not change the redirect. I also searched for registry changes with regedt32, searching for "google.com" with no results.
Some internet research led me to the Chrome Cleanup Tool, which simply resets Chrome to the original defaults at installation. That fixed the problem and is the same as simply selecting Reset in Chrome Settings.
The above steps are the major ways that a URL redirect can be inserted. So if a URL address is not going where you expect, checking them will hopefully save you hours of frustration.
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