Chrome soon will show a new review panel- “Extensions Review Panel”- on the chrome://extensions page, alerting users about potentially unsafe extensions. The initial launch will target extensions that are malware-infected, policy-violating, or are no longer available in the Chrome web Store.
One of the “Safety Check” features aimed at alerting harmful extensions users may have installed in Chrome browser is going to launch soon.
Three years back, Google launched the Safety Check feature in Chrome. The feature was designed to warn about password breaches, harmful extensions, and Safe Browsing status when you run the tool here: Settings > Privacy and security > Safety check.
The security feature is also availble for Chrome on Android.
Chrome’s new Extensions Review Panel
But, till now, never heard or seen, Chrome warning about harmful extensions. Seems the feature was not added to the Safety check with the initial launch, Google is working on adding an “Extensions module” to it. And, the company is preparing a new review panel that will warn users about unsafe extensions.
The new feature may require Chrome to regularly check and fetch metadata for installed extensions against extensions in the Chrome web store.
When you visit the chrome://extensions page, you’ll be alerted to “Review|” extensions that have been highlighted and taken down from the Chrome Web Store.
Chrome provides a “Remove all” button.
As of now, the warning appears like this:
“Review extensions that were taken down from the Chrome Web Store. These extensions might be unsafe. Chrome recommends that you remove them“.
As said at the beginning, the warning also includes policy-violated and malware extensions.
The feature is being still tested in Chrome 116 Canary, here is how you can enable it.
How to Enable Safety Check for Extensions in Chrome
- Visit chrome://flags,
- Type “Extensions” and Press enter to search
- Find and enable the following flags
“CWS info Fast Check”
“Extensions Module in Safety Check”
- Restart Chrome
Click on the 3-dot menu and select Settings, run the Safety check tool available under Privacy and Security.
As of now, it may not trigger the review button even if you’ve dangerous extensions, navigate to the chrome://extensions page to see the notice with the Remove all button.
Note: Safety check is a built-in on-demand scanner in Chrome. It won’t send data to Google unless you run it.
Summary: Soon, Google will introduce a new review panel on chrome://extenisons page to alert users about malware-infected, policy-violatiing and extensions that are no longer available in the Chrome Web Store