The main peculiarity of Chrome is the support it offers for extensions, extensions that add extra functions not available in the browser that allow us to interact with any web page in a much more efficient way. However, they can also be a danger to our PC.
Although it is true that the Chrome Web Store, through which Google distributes the extensions for this browser, is in charge of analyzing and checking all the extensions before they are publicly available to any user, there is always the possibility that some violates their policies or includes some form of malware through an update or simply slips past the team that oversees this store.
To prevent extensions from continuing to be a potential risk for our team, Google has just announced a new feature that will be implemented starting with the next version of Chrome, number 117. This feature is focused on helping users to know and ensure that all the extensions they use are completely safe and reliable by informing users when one of the extensions they do not use is no longer available in the browser.
Chrome will be much more secure
Surely, on more than one occasion, we have gone to use an extension and we have seen how it is deactivated and we have no way to make it work again. Google contemplates 3 specific scenarios where this new security control will be applied:
- Google’s monitoring team has detected that the application contains any type of malware or software that may affect the security of our equipment.
- The developer of the extension has removed it from the Chrome Web Store, which means that it will stop receiving new updates and may pose a risk to our security.
- The extension has been removed from the Chrome Web Store due to violating extension store policies.
With these new measures, Google wants to protect developers and avoid false positives, so it will notify its creators of the incident that has been detected so that they can proceed to solve the problem before showing a message to users and removing it from the store.
When Google detects a problem with an extension, in addition to disabling the extension, it will also display a message informing the reason why it has been disabled from the system and offering the option to remove it from the browser or access more information about the reason why it has been disabled. has been removed.
All the information related to the extensions that have been removed from the Chrome Web Store will be available from version 117 of Chrome, within the Privacy and security section and in the Security check section. The launch of this new version of Chrome is scheduled for early September.
