What is starting up Chrome without my permission?

Question

On my wife's account on our family computer, something is starting up Chrome and displaying ads -- totally without any intervention by anyone.

I'm watching it happen in Process Explorer as I type this --

1. I close Chrome and it's no longer on the process list
2. About ten seconds pass
3. Chrome is launched, and three instances appear in my process list
4. About five or ten seconds after that, the browser comes to the forefront and displays ads.

It's happening about ever twenty seconds, interrupting me even as I type this message.

It happens to Chrome specifically. I set Internet Explorer to be the default browser, but Chrome is still being fired up.

A virus scan reveals nothing. There are no Chrome extensions installed.

Answer 1

Any recent changes , updates or anything else been installed to your computer? which virus scanner are you using? - Try malware bytes (its free and pretty good) and running a full scan malware bytes download - cnet

when you have done that if its still starting in chrome. Try resetting chrome to default settings , disabling all add ons and set it back to its out of the box settings