Google Chrome Removal Madness on MacBook Pro Retina 13-inch 2015 OS X El Capitan

Losing my mind.

I have a two-part question.

(1) I have not had this laptop very long -- maybe two months -- and am still getting into the swing of all the swipes and two fingers this and three fingers that. But I'll get it. So I was playing around with the different touchpad commands last week, and suddenly my whole desktop screen was flooded with document icons. I mean hundreds. It appeared that every folder, and folder within folder within folder, had dumped out its documents (Word and pdf) so they were absolutely layers deep on my screen. I tried everything I could think of, and finally I just dragged my cursor over my screen in thirds, and made three new folders: Top Swath, Middle Swath, and Bottom Swath. I now have three folders with many, many documents in each of them. I haven't even tried to unravel all that.

One of my undergrads said that perhaps Google Chrome was the problem, and it was interfering with what I usually use -- Firefox or Safari, both of which are on my machine. He recommended taking Google Chrome off my laptop.

(2) I had installed Google Chrome a few weeks ago, and so now I want to get rid of it.

* Attempt #1: I went to the Google Chrome main website and followed their directions: I took Chrome from my Apps folder and pulled it into my trash. (I had to fiddle with my Admin settings to do it, but I finally managed that part.) Then I went to my Go to Folder and put in ~/Library/Google and deleted whatever I could. (There is still an icon called Google Chrome Brand.plist which won't move and I can't delete.) I dragged the icon from my dock. Result: I restarted my computer, got a Google Chrome dialogue box asking me if I wanted to install it. I clicked "Don't Install." But my laptop was already going through its paces and Google Chrome appeared on my dock as well as opened automatically. Repeat five times for same result. (Definition of insanity, or maybe despair: Expecting a different result for the same behavior.)

* Attempt #2: I went to WikiHow and I also watched a YouTube video. I got no new advice, even though I tried the old advice frequently. (Definition of insanity.) I also did searches on my laptop for anything that had the word Chrome in it, and dragged everything I could find into the trash. Empty trash. Restart computer? Google Chrome rises up like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

* Attempt #3: I found another set of answers, two of which recommended downloading an app that would completely zap all traces of any program from my computer. I downloaded AppCleaner for free and tried that for a while. At first I couldn't drag any of the Google Chrome icons into the box because they kept bouncing back. But then I went into my Preferences, signed in as Admin, and unlocked anything and everything I could see. Now when I drag a Chrome icon into AppCleaner, I get "7 Files were Found -- 191.4 MB." And then it lists

Google Chrome /Volumes/Google Chrome/Google Chrome.app 191.2 MB

Google Chrome /Voulmes/Google Chrome 191.3 MB

com.google.Chrome.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist

com.google.Chrome.savedState ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.google

app.com.google.Chrome.playlist /var/db/BootCaches/70091C8F-DDA8-4E28

app.com.google.Chrome.playlist /var/db/BootCaches/FFFFEEEEE=DDDD-CCCC . . .

com.google.Chrome.HifyY2 /var/folders/f0/4js3yxn172jb8ncpw2rlwls000

And every time I click Remove, whether I click to have all seven removed at once, or try each one singly, I get the same message: “Google Chrome” couldn’t be moved to the trash because the volume “Google Chrome” doesn’t have one.

Finally, the situation remains that every time I restart my laptop, the Chrome icon returns to my dock; a box with the Chrome icon and a fake Apps folder asks me if I want to Install it. I click "Don't Install," and Chrome automatically opens.

You may read the fulsomeness of my explanation as a happier alternative to a pure, high-pitched, Munch-like scream. I've been working on this problem for days.

Help? And thank you.