A few days ago, Google Chrome started acting up. Whenever I ctrl+T for a new tab, enter some search terms and hit Enter, I'm taken to a blank Google homepage with this URL: https://www.google.com/webhp?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS440US440&sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=hea&ie=UTF-8&ion=1.
This happens with one-word and multi-word search terms, and with any of the operators I use regularly. It also happens when I try to search in the url/search bar of an existing tab.
Running Chrome 16.0.912.75 m on Windows 7 Pro SP1. I hadn't installed any new extensions for several weeks before this started happening. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed.
Best Answer
Given the URL you posted, it might be related to the Instant Search feature of Chrome. It doesn't work for me and, according to some web searches about it, others.
Toggle the preference and see what happens.
In case you have a corrupted preferences file (you could test this with a pristine Chrome profile by specifying the
--user-data-dircommand line parameter), this should cause Chrome to overwrite it.