Google has come up with a plan to deliver on its promise of keeping users secure against downloads that are not encrypted by HTTPS delivered by web pages that are delivered via HTTPS. Chrome 82, two versions away from the current Chrome 80, will release in April 2020 and will warn users when they attempt to download any insecure file. The Google Chrome versions that will follow Chrome 82 will block the insecure downloads directly without asking for user consent.
Chrome 82, the first version to come with added security against insecure downloads, will only pop up warnings to users before allowing them to download insecure files including the ones with .exe extensions which are the most capable files of executing any malware in the system. In the later releases, Google aims to warn users for less dangerous insecure downloads such as images and texts as well. By the end of the year, the company aims to block all file types that are labelled under the insecure downloads list. Mobile users will operate on a version that is one behind the web users as the company believes mobile users are more secure to malicious downloads. The experience might become a little irritating for users as a lot of warnings are expected to pop-up when they attempt to start a download.
Talking about Google’s effort to make internet more secure and less annoying, the company recently announced a crackdown on irritating video ads that will now be blocked in Google Chrome. The company announced that video ad blockers will now automatically block three types of video ads, ads that appear at the start of a video and are more than 31 seconds long, ads that appear in the middle of the video, and ads that cover video content.