Getting Malware Help From Chrome

You may consider yourself a safe web surfer. You may have a comprehensive security software suite installed on your computer. You may schedule malware scans every day and keep your software up to date. But did you know that you can further secure your network just by using Chrome?

Even some Google enthusiasts don’t know about the built-in malware scanner that is included in Google Chrome. This scanner can help protect you from the types of malware that Chrome is usually susceptible to and it can also provide you with some nice additional security for your computer in general.

What Can the Chrome Scanner do for you?

The cool thing about the Chrome malware scanner is that it takes a comprehensive approach to protect the user. This means that they protect the user not only from common types of malware, but also from a host of software that may make your experience with Chrome less than optimal.

While such types of software may not infect your computer with a virus or malware, they may slow down your browser, make false promises, piggyback onto programs that you actually want to download or exhibit suspect behavior.

On the other side of, the Chrome malware scanner may very well protect you from:

• Software that transmits your data without your permission
• Software that can affect your system in unwanted ways
• Software that may harbor malware
• Software that embeds itself into your system and is difficult to remove.

The Chrome scanner may very well be helpful for protecting your experience while using Chrome and for safeguarding your computer from malware. So where does it fall short?

What the Chrome Scanner Does not do

At this point, it is important to note that the Chrome malware scanner cannot detect threats in real time. What this means is that it is not always running in the background like your standalone anti-malware software. You also cannot schedule it to scan at specified times.

In order to reap the benefits of the Chrome malware scanner, you have to go in and manually run the scan whenever you want to. So how might one find and run the Chrome malware scanner?

A Guide on Using the Chrome Malware Scanner

If you never knew that Chrome had a built-in malware scanner and would like to take advantage of it, here is a simple guide on running your first scan:

1. Of course, the first thing you are going to want to do is open Chrome. Once you have Chrome open, you should see three dots on the far right end of the address bar. Click these dots and scroll down to “Settings” and give it a click.
2. Once you are in the settings menu, you are going to want to scroll all the way to the very bottom where you will see the word “Advanced” and an arrow pointing downward. Click on the word “Advance”.
3. In the advanced settings, scroll to the bottom and find the category “Reset and clean up.” There are two options in this category, but we are looking for cleaning up the computer. Click “Clean up computer”.
4. You see the blue button that reads “Find” to the right of “Find and remove harmful software”? Give that button a click and you are done.

You can also run this scan using the following method:

1. In your Chrome address bar type in the URL: chrome: //settings/cleanup
2. This will lead you to a page similar to the cleanup computer page mentioned above. Once you are here, click “Find” and this will begin the scan.

Again, it is important to note that no anti-malware scanner is perfect, including Chrome. Running this scan may not rid you of all malware, and it should be used in tandem with a reputable and reliable anti-malware suite.

At any rate, any of the two aforementioned methods of running the Chrome malware scanner should work. If not, there are plenty of helpful video tutorials available online.

Safe Browsing

One of the things that have made Google Chrome a viable browser for nearly a decade is its commitment to security. In fact, the engine that drives the Google Chrome malware scanner is provided by a highly-esteemed IT security firm based in Eastern Europe.

Another thing that is nice about the Chrome malware scanner is that it is a free option for providing a second opinion to your anti-malware software. Some defense software can report what is known as a false positive, or a threat to your computer that isn’t actually a threat.

Using the Google Chrome malware scanner is something that you can try for free in order to assess the accuracy of a threat report.

Plus, it never hurts to run it so hopefully, now you have one more tool in your fight against the scourges of the internet.