As you are no doubt aware, bad things can happen as you browse the Internet. You can run into phishing schemes, where someone tries to trick you into sharing personal or sensitive information, usually through a fake website, some of which look extremely genuine. You also can run into websites that have been hacked and contain malware that tries to install itself on your computer, often without your knowledge; malware usually tries to harm you and your computer in some way, from simply messing up your computer’s behavior to trying to steal information.
Chrome includes technology, enabled by default, that helps protect you from phishing schemes and malware, displaying a warning whenever you visit a potentially dangerous page.
Chrome also uses a technique called sandboxing to open websites. Sandboxing isolates computer processes from anything else happening on the machine. If a sandboxed process crashes or becomes infected with malware, the rest of your computer remains unaffected. Each tab in Chrome opens as a separate process, completely independent of other tabs. If a website contains malware, the sandboxing technique isolates the malware to that browser tab; the malware can’t jump to another Chrome tab or to your computer. You eliminate the malware threat when you close the infected website’s browser tab.Using plug-ins, hackers can gain access to your computer. Plug-ins are small add-on programs for browsers. Because they are add-on programs, plug-ins can become out-of-date and hackers can use them to try to introduce malware onto your computer.
Adobe Flash Player is one of the most popular browser plug-ins; it is used most often to view video content. Out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player are also notorious for introducing malware into computers. Chrome reduces the threat that Adobe Flash Player poses by directly integrating it into Chrome. Because of this integration, updates for Adobe Flash Player are included in Chrome updates.
Chrome also regularly checks for the latest security update without any action on your part. By integrating Adobe Flash Player and regularly checking for security updates, Chrome greatly reduces the danger of malware infection.
To view the default security measures, you can follow the next steps:
- Choose Chrome Menu → Settings.
Don’t change security settings unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Advanced.
- In the Privacy section, the Protect You and Your Device from Dangerous Sites option warns you if Chrome detects that the site you’re trying to visit might contain phishing or other malware.
- From the Manage Certificates section, you can manage your HTTPS/SSL certificates and settings.