If you use Google Chrome, you can activate a new security feature that will warn you if you navigate to a suspicious website that resembles others already known for their malicious behavior. The alerts are part of the Enhanced Protection mode in Chrome’s Safe Browsing, which compares your activity to potentially harmful sites and warns you if you’re at risk of encountering malware, phishing, intrusive ads, or social engineering attacks. How Chrome Protects Against Malicious Websites Most Internet users are familiar with the full page alerts that appear if you navigate to a site that is known to be malicious. These red “dangerous site” warnings indicate a high risk of harm to the user and really can’t be ignored, as they take up the entire screen and urge you to return to a safe location. The new “suspicious site” alerts indicate a potential risk of harm based on patterns consistent with other known malicious sites. This means that Google is not so sure that the website is actually dangerous, but it looks a lot like others that spread malware or run phishing scams. These suspicious site warnings are smaller pop-ups with the text “This site doesn’t look right” and two button options: Mark as safe or Return to safe. Different colors, text, and formatting make it easy for users to distinguish between what Google considers dangerous and suspicious. You can enable Enhanced Protection in Chrome settings. Safe browsing in Chrome has three options: standard protection, enhanced protection, and no protection (which is not recommended). Standard protection compares your browsing activity, extensions and downloads with Google’s list of unsafe sites, which is updated regularly. In contrast, enhanced protection works in real time and uses AI analysis. Please note that enhanced protection requires you to share more information about your activity with Google, and the data is linked to your Google account. What do you think so far? While privacy-conscious users may be hesitant to submit more information to Google, it’s likely worth improving protection for those who aren’t as savvy about advanced scam tactics (and are therefore more likely to enter credentials or financial information or download a file from a malicious website). To enable Enhanced Protection and receive warnings from suspicious websites, go to Settings > Privacy & security in Chrome and turn on Enhanced Protection in the Safe Browsing section.
