Quick fix: what can I do about that double diamond icon in my Chrome address bar?

Issue

As Chrome continues to develop — or, rather, as Google continues to tweak it — it is more and more likely that you may find features that you weren’t aware of or suddenly be confronted by an icon that means absolutely nothing to you. This happened to me recently when I noticed an icon that resembled a pair of twinned diamonds to the left of the bookmark star in my address bar.

I hovered my cursor over the triangles to find out what they were and was greeted with the phrase “page wants to install a service handler.”

Thanks. Clear as mud. What is a service handler, and should I let the page install it?

Quick fix

I clicked on the symbol and got a box that offered to let that site open associated links, and I was invited to Allow, Deny, or Ignore it, with Ignore being the default. I clicked Done, and the symbol went away. Nothing else changed, and from what I could find from a little research, there was nothing else that needed to be done.

(Note: if you want, you can also click on the Manage button, which will take you to the Protocol handlers page in your settings — more on that in a minute.)

The full story

It turns out that these handlers enable a web service, such as Gmail or Google Calendar, to be opened with a link. For example, if you want your email links to be opened by Gmail, you can allow that handler.

However, when I clicked on that double diamond symbol and allowed the default Ignore to be chosen, Chrome assumed I didn’t want to be bothered with it, which is why I didn’t see it anymore when I went to that site.

But suppose you’ve decided you do want to associate your Gmail with email links or some other relevant site with associated links. How do you find that feature when the icon has gone away?

It’s hidden in the Chrome settings on the Protocol handlers page (mentioned above). There are two ways to get there:

• Select the three dots in Chrome’s upper-right corner and go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Site Settings > Additional Permissions > Protocol handlers. Or…
• Type chrome://settings/handlers in your address bar.

Regardless of how you get there, you can now tweak whether the protocol handler symbol will appear when you go to a site by selecting either Site can ask to handle protocols or Don’t allow sites to handle protocols.

Below those two choices, you’ll find a list of any sites that are not allowed to handle protocols. In other words, if you clicked on that double diamond before and chose either Deny or Ignore, that site will appear on the list.

Now, if you click on the X to the right of the site address, you can take it off that list. The next time you go to that site, the double symbol will be back. You can then click on it again and make a different choice.