As I hope the title implies, this post will be a bit satirical. This occurred just a few days ago, and it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
An older gentleman came up to my counter for some help, and he looked rather upset. He starts going on about how he's mad because he got this popup that said to call a number (first red flag), and they said it would cost $200-$600 to fix (second red flag), and he just got it a week ago and how come the antivirus didn't stop it, and what good is that antivirus anyway if it couldn't stop it.
For my technically minded folks, this gentleman fell victim to a redirect that was locking up his browser. Keep in mind that this gentleman has Windows 10 and is using Microsoft Edge for his browser. For the rest, this guy had basically clicked on something he probably shouldn't have, and it took him to a fake website that was telling him his computer had all these issues (which it didn't), and that the number was for Microsoft support (which it wasn't), and the people he spoke to were wildly overcharging him for a service that he gets for free with his service contract through my company if there were any actual issue. Basically, he was mad at us because he was being told by scammers that his brand new $900+ computer was broken because of something that was his own fault, and he didn't want to pay to have it fixed, which, as I mentioned earlier, he wouldn't have had to if there were any actual problem, because he has our service plan. Weird how that works, huh?
Moving on, normally when I deal with a browser-locking redirect page, I can simply end the task, reset Internet Explorer through Internet Options, restart the computer, and we're all hunky dory. Well this isn't a normal situation. Apparently Microsoft, in all their brilliance, forgot to include a way to reset Microsoft Edge, meaning it isn't affected at all be resetting the Internet Options outside of the browser. Swell. Well, if I end the task, maybe it'll just close the program and start again as it should. No dice. Instead, Edge is setup in such a way that if it is force closed, as a matter of convenience, it just opens up all your closed tabs for you! No matter what you do. It's impossible, without changing the settings before a situation like this occurs, to tell edge to start with just a single brand new tab upon starting back up after a force close. So that means that same redirect that is locking up his browser is still active! Yay! (Are you sensing the frustration yet?)
So I go searching. I start in Task Manager after reopening Edge to see if I can find all processes related to Edge that are running, not just the main task in the foreground, but in the details pane, to see if a process there is keeping that tab open even after I end what appears to be the main process. And with luck, I find there are in fact two processes running for Edge. One just says Microsoft Edge (extra stuff here), and the other says Microsoft Edge (extra stuff here)CP. Well those seem important. Lets end them. So I do. I try ending the CP one. It appears to immediately restart, so I figure it must have something to do with Edge only while it's running. In hindsight, I should have thought more on that at the time, but it didn't occur to me that it was anything special. So I turn to my next best resource. In fact, it's every techs number tool for solving any issue that they are confronted with for the first time. I'm talking about the master with the answers. The legend above them all. Google.
And I Googled the crap out of that problem. I searched every forum, looking for every conceivable way to reset Edge. Nothing. I search anything about browser redirects in Edge, and I find one post with an appropriate answer. Guy was in a similar pickle as myself, had tried resetting everything, tried ending tasks, nothing worked. A support rep chimed in with a response that basically may have been telling a guy with a broken leg to see his ophthalmologist to see if his broken leg was caused by cataracts. Finally someone towards the bottom of this posting had a solution I hadn't tried yet. Remember that process I mentioned earlier? The one that ended in CP? The one that I tried to end but it seemed to restart on its own? Yeah? Guess what? I was supposed to end that multiple times until it stops restarting, then I can close the redirect tab, close the browser, reopen it, and no more redirect. Oh joy.
So finally, after all this time, and easily 20-30 minutes have gone by with me trying to figure this issue out, I manage to end the process, close the tab, close the browser, reopen the browser, and big surprise, Edge is working the way it's supposed to. Lesson learned, if it restarts, hit it again. And a shout-out to Microsoft for once again having zero foresight for their products.
Note to anyone from Microsoft that might read this: Fix Edge, give it customizability like Firefox and Chrome, and I won't have a problem. Well... maybe.
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