As Chrome continues to develop (or, rather, as Google continues to tweak it), it’s increasingly likely that you’ll come across features you didn’t know about or suddenly be faced with an icon that means absolutely nothing to you. This happened to me recently when I noticed an icon that looked like a pair of twin diamonds to the left of the bookmark star in my address bar.
I hovered over the triangles to find out what they were and was greeted with the phrase “the page wants to install a service handler.”
Thank you. Clear as mud. What is a service controller? Should I let the page install it?
I clicked on the symbol and a box appeared offering to allow that site to open associated links, and I was invited to They allow you to deny, either Ignore him, with Ignore being the default value. I have clicked Made, and the symbol disappeared. Nothing else changed and from what I could find after a bit of research, there was nothing more to do.
(Note: If you wish, you can also click on the Manage button, which will take you to the Protocol handlers page in your settings; We’ll talk more about that in a minute.)
It turns out that these drivers allow you to open a web service, such as Gmail or Google Calendar, with a link. For example, if you want Gmail to open your email links, you can allow that handler.
However, when I clicked on the double diamond symbol and allowed the Ignore default to be chosen, Chrome assumed I didn’t want to be bothered with it, which is why I no longer saw it when I went to that site.
But suppose you have decided do you want to associate your Gmail with email links or some other relevant site with associated links. How do you find that function when the icon is gone?
It is hidden in Chrome settings on the Protocol handlers page (mentioned above). There are two ways to get there:
Regardless of how you get there, you can now change whether the protocol handler symbol appears when you go to a site by selecting The site may request to manage protocols. either Don’t allow sites to manage protocols.
Below those two options, you will find a list of sites that cannot handle protocols. In other words, if you clicked on that double diamond earlier and chose Deny or Ignore, that site will appear in the list.
Now if you click on the x to the right of the site address, you can remove it from that list. The next time you visit that site, the double symbol will appear again. You can then click on it again and make a different decision.
