I use Chrome. All of a sudden a few days ago, the browser started picking out words ~ making them big blue and bold ~ and turning them into links to some advertising material triggered by the key word in question. It's an eyesore and unnecessary to me. Is there some cookie or registry file that I can remove to end this particular, unsolicited bit of 'functionality'?

Ooh, maybe I am guilty of leaping before I looked...

http://www.malwarebytes.org/ ?

I shall give it a try.