Description of the issue:
A few days ago one of my family members computers started opening “https://www.wikipedia.org” every time a new Brave tab was created, sometimes at random intervals and/or every time I go into Brave’s settings. This doesn’t happen to Internet Explorer, only Brave. I have uninstalled Brave and reinstalled it multiple times but the problem persists. I have run multiple deep malware scans by multiple programs - but they found nothing and the problem persists. Nothing else is weird w/the computer. FWIW the computer has been running a fairly locked-down Avast Security software suite the whole time (for a year+).
I do realize this may fall under malware or something unrelated to Brave and therefore will fall to me to figure out a solution … but I wanted to post it just in case anyone else has a similar issue or more importantly a solution - or, realizing this is very low odds, someone finds it’s an issue with Brave itself. I am hoping to God I don’t have to reformat but unless I find a fix soon that may be my only option. If anyone else has had something like this and/or fixed it please chime in w/any advice. Thank you in advance!!
How can this issue be reproduced? (This assumes user has the problem I do)
@EM3R50N,
That is a very strange issue. A few things to check:
Can you go to Menu --> Settings --> New Tab Page and ensure that the New tab shows option is set to Dashboard? If it’s not, set it to Dashboard, relaunch the browser and check to see if you get the same behavior.
Killing two birds with one stone, can you create a new (temp) browser profile (Menu --> Create new profile) and browse for a bit to see if the issue persists in the new profile? If it odes not persist and wikipedia isn’t opening in new tabs when using the new profile, then the issue is likely related to either “bad data” stuck somewhere in the browser/cache or an extension you have installed in the browser.
Additionally, you mention that this started happening a few days ago – was Brave recently installed or have you (or your family member) been using it previously?
I’ve confirmed the issue occurs with: Firefox, Opera and Edge. Nearly identical behavior as described above.
I found a chrome based browser that DOES NOT have the issue: CCleaner Browser (from Piriform).
I found out that a 2nd computer on my network has thus issue. ugh.
I of course am not assuming just because I found a browser that doesn’t have the issue that the problem is gone – given the above there is obviously something very strange going on. Honestly I’m trying hard to not freak out.
For now I have uninstalled all other browsers and I’m running more malware scanners even though they haven’t found anything really yet.
Good news is that there’s nothing to do with brave browser here - bad news is I think I’m screwed and I am looking at system reformats in my future (unless someone has a magic fix).
@EM3R50N,
Thank you for following up. Sorry to hear it’s a bigger issue than just Brave
We wish you luck in resolving it – please don’t hesitate to reach back out if you have any Brave related issues
Thank you very much again for the suggestions
