Improve Chrome Security With These Extensions
Google Chrome comes with its own built-in security measures to alert you to dangerous websites and weed out phishing attacks , but it never hurts to have additional (or better) browsing protections.
Microsoft has just released a Windows Defender Chrome extension . Basically, it offers the same real-time protection as Google’s browser, but Microsoft claims its extension can block 99 percent of phishing attacks, while Chrome only catches 87 percent. Their struggling words.
We’re a little skeptical, however, as Windows Defender isn’t even the best security tool for Windows itself. Fortunately, there are many other free extensions you can try to keep your browser safe and protect sensitive information from phishing and other fake websites.
Avast is a well-researched antivirus service with a free Chrome extension that does exactly what the Windows Defender extension does, but reaches out to a community of 400 million people to help you determine which sites are trustworthy.
Do you want to customize the security of your browser as detailed as possible? Try uMatrix , a firewall extension that lets you block scripts and website ads. You can also use it to peek under the hood and see all the data a website is requesting at any given moment and whitelist all sites you can trust.
Finally, HTTPS Everywhere does exactly what its name suggests, providing an additional layer of security to the websites you visit by forcing them to use HTTPS connections (preventing potential attacker-in-the-middle attacks ).
Of course, all software in the world won’t help unless you use common sense : don’t visit sketchy websites, don’t download random files, and be careful who you give your password to. However, with an additional Chrome extension (or two), you will have a lot less to worry about.