Microsoft has a parental control and safety feature called "Microsoft Family Safety" which allows users to create safe spaces for their family members for browsing the web by setting up filters so as to block and filter inappropriate content and limit browsing to kid-friendly and family friendly content.
However, as it turns out, following Chrome version updates 137.0.7151.68, 137.0.7151.69, Google's web browser is getting automatically blocked by Microsoft Family Safety as affected users have reported that the browser will automatically close or crash and then fail to reopen. Thus if you are using Edge, you get the green signal from the Family Safety app, but not if you are using Google Chrome.
The issue seems to be affecting mainly Windows 11 devices but Windows 10 or macOS may be affected too.
A thread on Microsoft's official Windows forum by Peter Priestley1, which is presumably from an educational institute, says:
"So as of late last night, we've had students find that their chrome browser has been blocked my Microsoft family safety.
Seems to coincide with the latest vulnerability presented with older chrome versions, however its blocking all old and new versions of chrome."
The thread has been upvoted by 122 people at the time of writing.
There are plenty of other such threads online and users also say that they have tried all sorts of things like refreshing cookies and appdata but "nothing" seems to fix it. This shows that Microsoft's safety feature is certainly robust and that it is not easy to bypass but it also means affected users are not too happy about it considering it is seemingly blocking all versions of Chrome.
There is one fix that worked though, renaming chrome.exe to something else like chrome1.exe for example.
A Chrome community manager, Ellen T, has confirmed that the Microsoft feature is indeed what is causing it and the only way to fix the issue is to "unblock Chrome" inside the Family Safety app. Ellen says:
Our team has investigated these reports and determined the cause of this behavior. For some users, Chrome is unable to run when Microsoft Family Safety is enabled.
As shared on our official public-facing tracking bug, if you are on a Windows device, parents can adjust settings to restore access to Chrome:
Go to https://familysafety.microsoft.com or open the Family Safety mobile app.
Select the child.
To allow other browsers:
Disable “Filter inappropriate websites” under the Edge tab,
or Go to Windows tab → Apps & Games → unblock Chrome
Microsoft has also shared a similar guidance on the issue according to Fred SR., a senior member of the Chrome community.
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