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Google Chrome Is Getting Automatic Blocking of Malicious Downloads

Posted by timothy on from the whose-opinion-of-the-malware-though dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google today announced Chrome is getting an automatic download blocking feature for malware. Google has already added the new functionality to the latest build of Chrome Canary. All versions of Chrome will soon automatically block downloads and let you know in a message at the bottom of your screen. You will be able to "Dismiss" the message, although it's not clear if you will be able to stop or revert the block."

4 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Great news! by sootman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now, can you let me choose for myself which filetypes are safe or not? For my job, I have to download many PDFs (up to 100 at a time) and Chrome asks me EVERY... SINGLE... FUCKING... TIME "This type of file can harm your computer. Do you want to keep <filename> anyway?"

    LISTEN IDIOT: These PDFs come from a trusted source. Yes, I have to download them. No, I don't want to view them in the browser right this second. Also, I'm on a Mac, and also also, I don't use Acrobat, and also also also, this is my work machine, and IF anything would happen to it, I'd let I.T. blow it away and re-image it if needed. LET ME DOWNLOAD THE GODDAMN FILE. Every few months I search to see if there's a way to disable this, and so far I've come up empty.

    Needless to say, I don't use Chrome for this part of my job.

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    1. Re:Great news! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Informative

      Now, can you let me choose for myself which filetypes are safe or not? For my job, I have to download many PDFs (up to 100 at a time) and Chrome asks me EVERY... SINGLE... FUCKING... TIME "This type of file can harm your computer.

      this will remove the down warning for all file types.

      on OSX, open /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist and replace the "download" section with this


            "download": {
                "directory_upgrade": true,
                "prompt_for_download": false
            },

      found it in 2 minutes. my google fu is strong.

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  2. Re:Bah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you go to Chrome's settings and search for Privacy, you can uncheck "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar" to turn off this behavior. Then it will only autocomplete things from your browser history and bookmarks.

  3. let me add this by slashmydots · · Score: 5, Funny

    Chrome usage has been falling by approx 0.25% market share per month for the last year or so. It's like they're just trying to accelerate it now. Plus, I'm 99% sure this is an exact clone of a feature included with IE7. The IE10 version is even more popular with it's 5 or so clicks to finally get to the "I don't give a fuck if you haven't heard of this download, it's from fucking Sourceforge, don't delete it and let me run the damn thing. Yes I know it's a fucking MSI file" button. REAL popular feature.