I am not sure what has happened to my system but each time I click open Chrome the computer hangs instantly and I have to power off the machine. I have tried uninstalling it and re-installing it from the software centre. This didn't work so I tried installing directly from the Chrome website and the same thing happens.
I am able to use Firefox and Opera without issues. I don't really need Chrome but it bothers me that this is happening. Is this a known problem?
Yes, this problem has been reported several times recently in the forum when opening Chromium-based browsers.
Did you try to switch to Xorg?
What is xorg?
A display server protocol. The default one in Zorin core is Wayland. Logout and at login click on your username then a cog wheal appears. There select "Zorin Desktop on Xorg".
You could also try to launch chrome from terminal with disabled hardware acceleration:
google-chrome --disable-gpu
I am using an iMac 12,2 with core i5-2500S and Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 2000 (SNB GT1) / AMD® Turks, Weyland and Zorin 17.3 Core
O.k. I will give it a go. Does anyone know what is causing this problem now, I have been using Chrome for a long time without issue?
It's not clear, unfortunately. Disabling GPU hardware acceleration seems to work in some cases which suggests an issue with some graphics card driver. There are other Chromium-based browsers that also have this problem, such as Edge; Opera is also based on Chromium, so it's even more confusing that is works fine in your case.
Some applications work using the Chromium engine under the hood, like Zoom, Discord and others. Sometimes, those also experience similar issues like you describe, although with far less frequency. It seems the "closer to Chrome", the more issues there are.
The fact that this happens "sometimes" is what makes it tricky to debug properly.
If the terminal command works go into chrome settings and disable hardware acceleration. I have had this with most chrome based browsers.
google-chrome --disable-gpu
google-chrome: command not found
If google chrome is installed as flatpak you perhaps need the command for the flatpak package.
With flatpak list you can get the names of your installed flatpaks.
There select "Zorin Desktop on Xorg".
This worked.
What are the consequences of running the desktop on Xorg?
XOrg/X11 and Wayland are display server protocols. XOrg is the older one but often makes less problems because Wayland is not well implemented yet.
When you are able to launch your browser now without problems you can disable the hardware acceleration in the browser settings and don't need the terminal.
