It happened as an unusual side effect of blocking the new Norton toolbar from installing itself on Chrome. Now I can't use URL's on any program, except the browser. When I click an active URL I get the error "This operation has been canceled due to restrictions on this computer. Please consult your system administrator".
I don't know what setting would block the activity of URL's on all programs on my computer, except the browser, apparently altered as a bug brought about by how I blocked the installation of the Norton toolbar.
I am also constantly bothered by how aggressive Norton is about pushing its unneeded announcements and extra reasons to use my space and interrupt my day. This case just seems to be a really terrible consequence of one of those. I've been blocking Norton toolbar ever since it was introduced, was it 4 or so years ago? I've recently been noticing that Norton was checking out websites returned with a Google search, possibly a nice addition to Google's doing that as well. Now maybe that stopped when I blocked the toolbar's attempt to install itself again, though I don't know quite what was different this time, it seemed to be being more aggressive than before, and said I would be unprotected online if I didn't accept it. I've always thought I paid Norton good money to protect me from annoying pop-ups, and to not have programs taking over real estate on my screen, but Norton seems to be the worst offender of all....
Anyway, I need help now. How do I unblock the use of URL's on my PC ???