If you're like me and so many others, you don't like Chrome saving and
displaying your most frequented web sites for everyone to see, in every newly
opened tab, then here is a solution for you.
This is for Windows 7 users: (I don't have alternate instructions for other
operating systems, but you may be able to get by with what you glean from the
information below.)
Right click the "Start" button at the bottom-left-hand corner of your windows
screen.
Select "Open Windows Explorer" from the menu that appears.
Click on the address field at the top and key in the following:
C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Then hit [Enter]
You will find some files that will need to be reset and then marked as "Read-
only" to prevent Chrome from making updates to them and therefore preventing
Chrome from storing and displaying your most visited websites on both your
Home and New Tab pages. The four files are named:
History
History-journal
Top Sites
Top Sites-journal
To reset these files, firstly make sure the Google Chrome application is
closed completely. Then simply highlight each of these files in turn, and hit
the [Del] key on your keyboard.
Once all four files are deleted, open Google Chrome and then again close the
application. Chrome will have automatically recreated these missing files in
their default state.
Again, confirm Chrome is closed. Now that these files are in default and free
of any of your personal information, right click each file in turn, and select
"Properties" at the bottom of the menu that appears.
A Properties window will open.
At the bottom of the "General" tab, place a check in the Attribute box labeled
"Read-only".
Click the [Apply] button at the bottom, then click [OK] to close the
Properties window.
Once you've completed these steps for all four files, you can now start Google
Chrome and enjoy the fact that your Top Sites are now locked in their default
state.
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If you are have trouble keeping Chrome from modifying your personal
preferences, or randomly reverting back to default. You can apply the same
trick as before.
Right click the "Start" button at the bottom-left-hand corner of your screen
Select "Open Windows Explorer" from the menu that appears
Click on the address field at the top and key in the following line...
C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Then hit [Enter]
Locate the file named "Preferences" and delete it.
Start Google Chrome. A new Preferences file will have been created in it's
default state.
Access the settings within the Chrome application, and apply whatever changes
you see fit. I, for example, prefer that Chrome open a specific page on
start-up, always show the Home button & all my bookmarks at the top of the
screen, and always open the same page at Home as on start-up.
For some strange reason Google has yet to satisfactorily explain or FIX, these
settings always revert back to default at some point. Or changes you make will
not stick. Google says your settings become corrupted. I believe Google's
agenda is to keep you going back to their default page, but I digress.
Once you've set your preferences in Chrome, shut down the application.
Go back to the same file folder as before.
Right click the file named "Preferences", and select "Properties" at the
bottom of the menu that appears.
A Properties window will open.
At the bottom of the "General" tab, place a check in the Attribute box labeled
"Read-only".
Click the [Apply] button at the bottom, then click [OK] to close the
Properties window.
Your Preferences file is now locked to the settings you specified in Chrome
and will not be overwritten or changed. Even if you attempt to change them
yourself within Chrome, they will revert back to their locked state. For most
people that's OK, because they are happy keeping their preferences fixed.
What may happen in the future for any of these fixes, is that Google will
apply updates & patches to the application from time to time. Some of these
updates may REQUIRE modification to any of these files you've locked, in order
for the new Chrome version to operate properly. The patch may unlock these
files during update to enforce their changes, or the files locked state may
prevent the patch from completing properly... etc. etc. Regardless, problems
may arise in the future by making these modifications. You can simply remove
the "Read-only" attribute from these files, thereby unlocking them prior to
any update. Then reapply these changes afterward. Worst case, if all breaks
down, you'll need to uninstall Chrome and re-install it. Make sure you create
backups of your Bookmarks before you do. This can be done within Chrome, by
exporting your bookmarks to an HTML file and importing them after re-
installing Chrome. Or, if Chrome is so broken that it won't run, you can just
make a copy of the file named "Bookmarks" located in the same folder as those
files we modified earlier. Then simply copy that file back into this same
folder after re-installing Chrome. To state the obvious, don't lock your
Bookmarks file in the same way as the others, or you will prevent any new
changes to your bookmarks. Not a good idea.
Well, I hope you found this information helpful. Enjoy :)