[SOLVED] Chrome 64 starts slow: Win 10 Home, MBAE 1.08.1.1045

[mjcatt]

I am near the end of upgrading from 64-bit Win 7 to Win 10 Home followed by a Win 10 clean install. I am seeing something similar to previously-reported problems of browsers being slow to start. Previous threads from about MBAE version 1.05 were solved by installing the latest version of MBAE.  Here is what I'm seeing new:

1.  I am using the latest version of MBAE: 1.08.1045.

2.  I have 3 browsers:  Edge, FireFox and Chrome 64.  Only Chrome 64 starts slowly, about 8-10 seconds whereas the other two browsers start within about a second.

3.  So far I am only using Windows 10 firewall and antivirus facilities, no third-party ones installed yet (may soon install free COMODO and AVAST)

4.  I have SpywareBlaster installed, but as a test I disabled it and I also disabled all Chrome extensions and plugins with no effect on the slow startup.

5.  If I stop all protection in MBAE then Chrome starts in about 1-2 seconds.

6.  My issue does NOT involve browser crashes as described in past threads.

For what it is worth, I installed MBAE after all browsers had been installed.

I have attached a zip of the MBAE user data directory.  I also included a FRST scan log in the zip.

 

Any comments/suggestions are appreciated.

MBAE and FRST logs.zip

[pbust]

Try disabling your Chrome extensions or creating a new Chrome profile. Do you still experience the slow startup then?

[mjcatt]

Thanks for your comments Pedro. I think the problem is solved. Just a note:  I did try disabling all extensions and plugins as well as changing profiles before doing my original post - none of that had an effect.

 

However, suddenly this morning all browsers, including Chrome, are starting normally (about 1-2 seconds).  Unfortunately, I didn't do anything at all.  Realizing that this is a new fresh install of Windows 10, I think what may have happened is that it took some time for all software and driver updates to occur.

 

I am guessing that a driver problem or other software problem got fixed by an automatic windows update (although I haven't discovered any log records of that yet).  I am completely new to Windows 10 and I find Microsoft has gone even further to shelter users from knowing what the operating system is doing so right now I don't feel I know as much about what windows is doing in terms of updates as I did using Windows 7.

 

I'll eventually learn my way around Windows 10, but my impression is that Windows 10 is designed to be windows for dummies and it now takes more effort for power users to understand what's going on behind the scenes.

[pbust]

Yes it might be possible a Windows 10 update cause the problem temporarily.

 

If you come across any problems between MBAE and Win10 in the future follow the fresh re-installation steps:

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/171634-anti-exploit-not-started-under-windows-10/