Google abandons Chrome Cleanup Tool for Windows systems The Register

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Google is saying goodbye to an application that allowed Chrome users on Windows systems to get rid of unwanted software.

Cholocate Factory’s Chrome Cleanup Tool was introduced in 2015 initially as a standalone product and later integrated into the Chrome browser and has performed over 80 million cleanups over the past eight years.

But newer tools to keep surfers safe and an evolving threat landscape are making the Chrome cleaner increasingly irrelevant, so with this week’s release of Chrome 111 for Windows (and Mac and Linux, for that matter ), the cleaning app has been wiped out.

“Starting with Chrome 111, users will no longer be able to request a Chrome Cleanup Tool scan via Safety Check or take advantage of the ‘Reset Settings and Cleanup’ option offered in chrome://settings on Windows,” Jasika Bawa, product manager of the Google Chrome Security Team, wrote in a post. “Chrome will also remove the component that periodically scans Windows machines and prompts users to run cleanup if it finds anything suspicious.”

According to Google’s Unwanted Software Policy, most applications that fall into this category include characteristics such as being deceptive or tricking users into installing them, affecting a user’s system in unexpected ways, being difficult to remove, and collecting or transmitting information private without the user’s knowledge.

The Chrome cleanup tool probably won’t be missed by too many users. The number of complaints about unwanted software on Windows has steadily decreased in recent years, averaging about 3 percent of total complaints over the past year, Bawa wrote.

The number of discoveries of unwanted software on Windows systems has also decreased, with only 0.06% of Chrome Cleanup Tool scans performed by users in February finding such software.

That said, there are a number of apps and tools that can be used to protect users from malware. Microsoft offers its Defender Application Guard browser extension, for example.

Google also automatically provides what Bawa says are more proactive tools, including Google Safe Browsing and antivirus software, both of which block unwanted file-based software. Users can also turn on Advanced Protection, another security tool that shares data in real time with Safe Browsing to protect against dangerous websites and downloads.

Most unwanted file-based software has moved to extensions, which Google seeks to eliminate through a review process for the Chrome Web Store, he wrote.

The other change dooming the Chrome Cleanup Tool is the shift of identity theft and credential compromise threat groups to enter corporate networks rather than through malicious software. In the browser space, this has included an emphasis on cookie theft.

“Therefore, we doubled down on defenses against such malware through a number of enhancements, including strengthened authentication workflows and advanced heuristics to block phishing and social engineering emails, malware landing pages, and downloads,” Bawa wrote. .

Cybersecurity firm Sophos said in a report last year that the increased use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) has hampered the ability of bad actors to use stolen credentials to capture user account names and passwords.

“Attackers are increasingly turning to stealing ‘cookies’ associated with credentials to clone active or recent web sessions while bypassing MFA in the process,” wrote researcher Sean Gallagher.

This comes against the backdrop of the once-simmering competition between Google and Microsoft in artificial intelligence that has increased rapidly in recent months with Microsoft’s introduction of the ChatGPT chatbot into Bing and many other parts of the Microsoft empire, and the backlash from Google with Bard.

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