GoogleCrashHandler.exe is such a process. I recently saw it running on my system and decided to find out why it was running, and how it could be disabled.

Let me start by showing you how you can find out if the process is running on your system.

Press Ctrl-Alt-Esc to open the Windows Task Manager. Switch to the processes tab on the tabbar to see a snapshot of processes that run on your computer system. I suggest you click on the Image Name column header to sort processes alphabetically. Now go down the list and see if you find GoogleCrashHandler.exe as a process there.

The path points to the Google directory under Application Data. The name alone suggests that it is linked to Google software installed on the system. Some users might think that it is caused by Google Chrome installations on the system. While that is true, it is not the only Google desktop application that installs the GoogleCrashHandler.exe on the system.

Google has the following to say about the process:

GoogleCrashHandler.exe runs continuously on your computer if you’ve selected to send anonymous usage statistics and crash reports to Google for certain Google software, like Google Chrome. It helps send crash details to Google when your Google software unexpectedly shuts down. We use this data to help determine how to prevent these errors from happening in the future.

The process runs on the system if usage statistics and crash reports are send to Google which means it is a monitoring tool that sends information from your computer to Google.

You need to disable the monitoring of your browsing and the report sending in all Google applications that support the feature to completely remove GoogleCrashHandler.exe.

An example. I run Google Chrome Canary and Google Chrome Dev on my system. If I disable the setting “Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google” in the Canary version but not the Dev version, then GoogleCrashHandler.exe keeps on running on the system.

The process is only removed from running on the system if I disable the setting in both Chrome versions.

Remove GoogleCrashHandler.exe

Here is how you do that. Open Google Chrome and enter chrome://settings/advanced in the address bar of the browser. You can alternatively click on the Wrench icon and select Options > Under the Hood.

Locate the setting Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google under Privacy and remove the checkmark from it. There is no save button, just close the page once you have removed the checkmark.

If this is your only Google desktop application then GoogleCrashHandler.exe should disappear from the process listing after a few seconds. If it is not, you need to find a similar looking setting in another Google product on your system.

I just found out that I have written about that process back in 2009 for the first time. The problem with GoogleCrashHandler.exe is that you may inadvertently install it again whenever you install a new Google application.

The option to submit anonymous usage statistics is enabled by default when you download the Google Chrome installer. It is likely that the majority of Windows Chrome users have GoogleCrashHandler.exe running on their system because of this.

The only way to prevent the installation of the process is to pay extra attention to Google download pages. You may alternatively disable JavaScript on those pages, as the option to collect anonymous usage statistics is then disabled on the page.

Is GoogleCrashHandler.exe running on your system?

To find out if it is running in Windows press [Ctrl Alt Del] on your keyboard to open the Windows Task Manager. According to Google GoogleCrashHandler.exe has the following characteristics:

GoogleCrashHandler.exe runs continuously on your computer if you’ve selected to send anonymous usage statistics and crash reports to Google for certain Google software, like Google Chrome. It helps send crash details to Google when your Google software unexpectedly shuts down. We use this data to help determine how to prevent these errors from happening in the future.

The process can be turned off in the installed Google programs. That could be a bit of a problem if several Google applications are installed on the computer system. In Google Chrome – Google’s web browser – you have to go to into the Options, switch to the Under The Hood tab and remove the checkmark in front of “Help make Google Chrome better by automatically sending usage statistics and crash reports to Google”.

Other Google applications have similar options. If more than one Google app is installed you need to go through all of them to turn off the crash reporting in all of them. Once that is done GoogleCrashHandler.exe will not be running on the computer system anymore starting with the next start of the computer system (restart or kill the process for immediate effect).