Worried about the adware attacks and malware sneaking into your devices through Google Chrome browser? Here are some tips to keep them at bay.
Maintaining your safety and privacy online, especially when it comes to surfing websites, is very important. Nowadays, we rely a lot on the internet, and you can never be sure of anyone’s intentions anymore, making it difficult to trust myriads of online services we use these days. But there are some ways to keep your browsing safe. If you are a Chrome user, we have mentioned below some tips to stay safe and secure while using the internet.
Browse the web privately in Incognito mode
Google Chrome remembers your activity such as your browsing history, cookies, website data, information entered in forms and more. If you want to prevent Google Chrome browser from tracking these activities, you can surf the internet privately in Incognito mode. Open Google Chrome on your computer or smartphone and click more options icon at the top right corner. Click the option called ‘New Incognito Mode.’ Another way to open an Incognito window is to use a keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + n for WIndows, Linux and Chrome OS users.
Mac users can press ⌘ + Shift+ n. When browsing privately in Incognito mode, Chrome won’t keep a track of any of your activities we mentioned above.
Choose your privacy settings carefully
Google claims to be working consistently on enhancing your experience when it comes to browsing on Chrome, and while doing so, it offers many web services to save you some valuable time. One of the services helps load web pages quickly. Each service accesses certain data. For example, a prediction service helping complete searches as well as URLs typed in the address bar reads your browsing history and remembers popular websites.
In case you don’t want that to happen, open Google Chrome > More > Settings > Advanced > Privacy and security > Turn off any of the privacy settings you no longer want.
Watch our if website is safe to visit
As a Chrome user, you can always check whether a website’s connection is secure or nor. If you are not sure if a website is safe to visit, all you can do is check security information about the website. Google Chrome also alerts users if a website’s connection isn’t secure and as Google explains in its support pages, certain websites don’t let users browse safely or privately. In that case, all you can do as a responsible user is open a web page in Chrome and look for the security signs at the left of site’s address in an address bar.
The security statuses include ‘Secure,’ ‘Info or Not secure’ and ‘Not secure or Dangerous.’ If the security status says a website is safe to visit, information you share or receive there is private. Also, check if the website URL starts with ‘http://,’ which indicates that a website has a valid security certificate.
Take warnings about unsafe sites seriously
As mentioned earlier, Google often alerts users in case it detects that a website you are connecting to isn’t safe to visit. Such websites often contain malware or phishing scripts to gain unauthorized access to your data. Malware and phishing detection are what make it possible for Google to issue warnings. Fortunately enough, they are turned on by default inside Google Chrome settings. So, Google recommends that you should be extra careful when it comes to dealing with such websites.
It’s always better if you avoid visiting such malicious websites to be on a safe side. Some websites often try to tricks users into downloading harmful software to make things worse.
Get rid of unwanted software and ads
If your Google Chrome is acting weird or showing pop-ups every now and then, there’s a great chance that it may be infected by a malware. However, Google Chrome blocks pop-ups by default. But if turning them off completely isn’t helping much, you might have some unwanted software installed on your system. In that case, you can reset your Google Chrome settings. To do that, open Google Chrome > More > Advanced > Reset Settings. For Linux, Mac or Chromebook users, these steps may differ a little bit.
