Dear colombus,
I think your problem is you have removed your google chrome but not the registry entries. So, delete the two registry entries of Google chrome. Procedure is this.
01.start menu --> Run--> regedit --> hkey_current_user-->software-->select "google"-->right click and delete.
02.start menu --> Run--> regedit --> hkey_local_machine-->software-->select "google"-->right click and delete.
Restart the computer. I think it may solve your problem
Easy solution.
Try to clean with registry cleaner. It may clean the uninstalled program registry entries. But my preference is first method.