Google really doesn't want you to click that suspicious-looking link or hand over your personal information to that mysterious anti-virus company whose ads keep popping up in your browser window. The company has released a new beta for Chrome, adding malware protection that is less behind-the-scenes and more straightforward.
Detailing the new tweaks at the Google Chrome Blog, Software Engineer Dominic Hamon promised Chrome's pending update will now call out insidious sites masquerading as legitimate businesses for what they really are:
To help protect you against malicious downloads, Chrome now includes expanded functionality to analyze executable files (such as '.exe' and '.msi' files) that you download. If a file you download is known to be bad, or is hosted on a website that hosts a relatively high percentage of malicious downloads, Chrome will warn you that the file appears to be malicious and that you should discard it.
Of course, this doesn't mean it's completely fool proof. Chrome users still have control over what they download and what they don't, he added.
Security company Sophos Labs attempted a controlled test of the new beta by dangling some certified malicious software in front of it (so to speak), but the browser failed to take notice. Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley wrote off the issue as a perfect storm of rough early software combined with the smallish sampling of the chosen malware.
Hopefully, he's right. You can download the new Google Chrome beta here.
