Google Chrome is the most popular browser on the web. The popularity comes with more security risks that many hackers try to find vulnerability in the browser to hack your browsing activities. On other hand, many users also do not follow security guidelines like keeping complex passwords and browsing safely. Google Chrome offers multiple ways to protect your computer from malware and dangerous websites. From version 83, you have a Safety Check section for enhanced protection. In this article, we will explain how to do safety check in Google Chrome using the latest feature.
Chrome Safety Options
Google already offers multiple ways to protect your browser and computer as we have explained in our previous article.
- Enable safe browsing option to stop malicious websites.
- Clear browsing activities to remove browser’s stored data.
- Automatically update to protect you from the latest security threats.
- Stop cookies and control the accessibility of individual website.
The safety check combines some new features with the safe browsing security option to protect you from data breaches and harmful extensions.
Running Safety Check in Chrome
- Open Google Chrome browser and go to “chrome://settings/” command URL.
- Click on the “Privacy and security” option on the left sidebar.
- Click on the “Go to Safety Check” button under “Safety Check” section.
- Chrome will run the safety check and show you the status like below under various headings. You can find recommendations if there are any that need your immediate attention.
Chrome will check the followings during the safety check run.
1. Passwords Check
With this check Chrome will analyze all your stored passwords (in Google Password Manager) are complex and not leaked in previous data breaches. You can find the reused and weak passwords, but you have to login with your Google account for checking compromising passwords. This will allow Google to send the passwords in encrypted manner and check the database to match if the passwords are in the previous data breaches.
You can also directly go to “Google Password Manager > Checkup” section and check all your passwords.
2. Updated Version Check
The update process will check whether your browser is up to date with the latest version. Generally, Chrome will automatically update the version when you connect to internet. Therefore, you will not see any error in this section unless you manually disabled the automatic Chrome update process. Otherwise, click on the box to trigger the update process to get the latest version.
3. Safe Browsing Check
The result of the safe browsing section depends on the level of protection you have enabled on your browser. By default, Chrome will use the standard protection and hence you will see a message like “You’re getting standard protection”. Click on the safety browsing box and you will be taken to “Security” settings page. Otherwise, go to “chrome://settings/security” page if you want to change the protection level.
You can enable one of the three protection levels available – enhanced, standard or no protection.
Obviously, no protection is not recommended and you can choose between enhanced and standard options.
Enhanced Safe Browsing Protection
This option will proactively warn you before any security problem happens. However, Google will collect your browsing data, extensions and sync with your account if you are logged in. if you do not want to share data with Google then this is not an option for you.
Standard Safe Browsing Protection
This option will warn you when Chrome detects any security threats like potentially dangerous websites, downloads and extensions. Even with this standard protection, Chrome may still send some data to Google to compare the data with the database. However, the URLs are checked with the stored data within Chrome in general.
In both cases, you have to login to your account to check the stored passwords are part of the security breach.
Advanced Options
You can find few more safe browsing options available under advanced section. The certificates and keys section will take you to your computer management option depending upon the operating system. However, the notable feature is the “Use Secure DNS” option. Check out our previous article on how to use secure DNS in Google Chrome to learn more about this.
Note: Earlier, safety check used to find harmful extensions installed on your browser. However, this is no more part of the safety check with the latest version. Now, Chrome will automatically check all installed extensions and warn if you have any potentially dangerous extensions.
Final Words
The safety check process helps to verify your data is safe and passwords are not part of data breaches. However, you need to send some details to Chrome in order to have an effective safety check. We recommend to use standard protection level and do the safety check periodically by logging into your Google account. In addition, you can also setup 2 step verification so that no other person can login to your Google account even with a password. Also, make sure to use complex and non-repetitive passwords for all other websites.
