This new Chrome downloads feature is sure to protect more users

Chrome users have probably noticed a change to the download interface over the last year, with downloads appearing in the top right corner of the browser. Google is now stepping up its security protections for this interface by providing a two-tier system for categorizing potential threats from downloaded files.

A Google Security Blog published on July 24 outlines this new system and other protective measures designed to give users more context about their downloads. A file can now be categorized as suspicious, indicating an unknown risk of user harm, or dangerous, suggesting a high risk of user harm. Both are initially blocked, and you’ll prompted about what to do next.

Safe Browsing recognizes dangerous files as threats, but suspicious files are unknown quantities and can be sent for a deep scan. This will now happen automatically for users with Enhanced Protection enabled on Chrome. The deep scan can allow Chrome to identify a threat it hasn’t encountered before, and it may subsequently warn that the file is dangerous if threats are detected during the scan.

In case malicious files are hidden within encrypted archives in the download, users may be prompted for a password when sending the file for a deep scan. The password will likely be somewhere obvious, like on the website you’re visiting or in the file name itself. This allows Safe Browsing to open the archived file for the purpose of the scan only.

Google states that “files sent for deep scanning are over 50x more likely to be flagged as malware than downloads in the aggregate.” This will no doubt bring an extra level of reassurance to a lot of users.