"Choose Activity" pop up in chrome. How to fix/remove

[Linhardt]

Recently I get this annoying pop up in Chrome on my Samsung S22 phone. Everytime I click a link in the search a Choose Activity pop up pops up giving me several app choices to use. I never used to see this. Is this a new setting in Chrome, Android /App, or Samsung settings? How do I remove this annoyance?

Pic of popup below...

Chrome 121.0.6167.143
Android 14
One UI 6.0
Samsung Galaxy S22

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If you select one of those, does it ask you if you want to use that "Just Once" or "Always"?

 

[Linhardt]

No it doesn't. Just those options and I select chrome since I am in chrome in the first place and it opens the link.

Also just noticed that from my email notification on this thread I created in Android Central from the notification of your post the link in the email did the same thing. So I am assuming that it is not just a chrome issue but Android. Because when I clicked on the link in email the same pop up came up.

When doing a Google search for answers there was only one search result about Brave app where someone experienced a similar thing but the post had no answers and the poster never responded again to questions.

I don't have Brave installed.

I also ran AVG anti virus and Malwarebytes to see if virus but they both came out clean.

I do have installed Action Launcher and haved used it for many many years. But I could not find anything about the popup within Action Launcher.

Currently I am at a loss as to why it happens. But seems like any link via chrome, email, and probably anywhere else causes it to popup.

 

[Linhardt]

Also my android popup blocker is off.

 

[B. Diddy]

Does it also happen in Safe Mode? https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062983/

 

[Linhardt]

No it doesn't happen in safe mode. But when I turned off/on phone to turn off safe mode my Action Launcher did not launch and was in normal Google screens. I checked again and it popped up but different style. With the Always and one time selection.

 

[Linhardt]

 

[Linhardt]

So now that it was in normal One UI and had pop-up shown above in previous post. I elected chrome and Always. And then I rebooted and it was working normal without the pop-up. Then I relaunched Action launcher. It was still working normal and did not show the pop-up. I then rebooted again and phone started automatically in Action launcher and still worked correctly. So maybe now it is fixed.

Maybe it was action launcher showing the first popup I showed in my first post but without Always/one time options. So since I could never elected Always it kept popping up each time.

Thanks for your assistance and suggesting safe mode. That helped me figure it out I guess.

Hopefully it is fixed for good at this time.

 

[Linhardt]

Well I was wrong. Turned off/on phone. Action launcher default home app. Opened chrome or was back. Changed default home app to One UI and has same popup. And still no option to select Always (see attached screenshot).Will try safe mode again.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm guessing this is some quirk of Action Launcher. I don't use it, so I'm afraid I won't be much help. If someone else here uses it, maybe they can weigh in. In addition, you can send an email to the dev and see if they can help: support@actionlauncher.com

 

[Linhardt]

Can you answer this? When to go to settings - apps - default apps- open links does yours have a default app underneath it? Or is it blank underneath it? Mine is always blank even if I select chrome. It also has open links in apps. Which originally it was on. I now have it off. Maybe with it on it was giving me a choice of apps to use listed below the option. And that is why the pop-up showed? So maybe I needed to turn it off so it would just use the default browser that I set to chrome?

 

[B. Diddy]

"Opening Links" is just to get to that next menu. There wouldn't be anything shown under that option.

 

[Linhardt]

"Opening Links" is just to get to that next menu. There wouldn't be anything shown under that option.

Ok. Got it.

So my assumption of the option of open links in app if turned on will allow a selection of those apps below to open the link dependent on the link type?

Which would put those corresponding app in the "choose activity" pop-up to select the app you want? And if turned off only opens links in the default browser. I'm my case chrome?

Just trying to make some sense or clarification on how that "open links in app" is supposed to work when turned on or off. And if turned on is why that choose activity pop-up keeps popping up when clicking a link. Because several corresponding app could handle opening the link.

For example, if it's turned on and I open a PDF link, the choose activity pop-up shows chrome, Adobe acrobat, and any other apps that handles a PDF file in a list to choose from.

And if turned off it just opens the default browser to handle the PDF file.

Am I right about all that?

 

[B. Diddy]

I still think that Choose Activity is related to Action Launcher, and not One UI or the basic Android system -- I've never seen it on my Pixels. The fact that it goes away in Safe Mode would also support that.

 

[J Dubbs]

I've never seen that in my Pixels or my Samsung Flip, all running Brave Browser and Chrome. I'm not using any third party launchers, all stock. I agree with B. Diddy that Action Launcher might be the culprit here.

 

[Linhardt]

Thanks everyone. As of this morning after turning off the "open links in app" the issue has not appeared.

You are probably right on the Choose Activity pop-up being a Action Launcher. But I think it is rendering what One UI or basic android system is doing. Meaning that the One UI and basic android might also creating a pop-up but it has the ability to select Always or One Time options where as the Action Launcher does not have those options in the pop-up. But the pop-up only applied when "open links in app" is set to ON. But I am still unsure how the "open links in app" feature is totally supposed to work.

But when "open links in app" is off I do not get that pop-up at all anymore. So it is possible that Action Launcher does not have that feature working smoothly as it should be. But for now it is working how I want and opening any links in chrome at this point.

If anyone is out there with Action Launcher installed and using it I would be curious if they are having the same issue.

I will also try to contact Action Launcher with the issue to see if it is an issue with them or something else since they have a better ability and knowledge of Action Launcher to reproduce the situation to see if an issue.

 

[B. Diddy]

I just looked at the same setting on my Pixel, and realized that the "Open links in apps" toggle is specifically for Instant Apps, which is where an app can be tried without even installing it: https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant/overview. On the Pixel, the option is actually titled "Instant Apps", with the description "Open links in apps, even if they're not installed." You'll notice that's the exact same wording in the Samsung menu, except the title doesn't mention anything about Instant Apps -- so it makes much more sense now when they say "even if they're not installed."

Why this would have anything to do with Choose Activity is beyond me. The apps that show up in that Choose Activity menu are ones you've actually installed, right?

 

[Linhardt]

The apps that show up in that Choose Activity menu are ones you've actually installed, right?

Correct. The pop-up only shows installed apps in it on my Samsung Phone.

But also on my phone it has titled Instant Apps on it but you click on it then it goes to Google Play Instant screen for Upgrade Web Links. Which on my phone I currently have it turned off. But underneath that Instant Apps show the Installed Apps. Assuming your Pixel phone screen looks the same.

 

[B. Diddy]

Right, that's what I see on my Galaxy A32 5G as well. I guess Samsung hopes the user can figure out that the toggle is related to Instant Apps. It's a little clearer on the Pixel menu: