Chrome Virus Scan: How to Detect and and remove Malware?

Google Chrome has a built-in virus scanner that can be used to detect and remove malware from your computer.

In this post, we will show you how to start the Chrome Virus Scan and use it to get rid of the malicious programs and files from the system.

What is Chrome Antivirus?

Chrome Antivirus is a feature of the Google Chrome web browser. It has been around for a while and can be found under the Reset section in Settings.

The virus scanner works as an on-demand virus scan to check if your computer is affected by any malicious software or codes that may hamper its performance or damage it severely. Perhaps the most useful feature of Chrome Antivirus is that it lets you know which files are causing security problems for your computer.

It can detect malicious programs by their patterns, i.e., it uses signature detection to quarantine malware files. The virus scanner software installed on your system might not be able to detect certain viruses or malware because it does not have any prior signatures. Chrome Antivirus’ on-demand scan is a great way to find out if your PC is safe or not.

How to perform Chrome Virus Scan on Windows PC?

Performing the virus scan on Chrome is pretty straightforward and it can be done without entangling into too many steps.

Here are the steps for that:

1. Launch Google Chrome browser and head towards its Settings.
2. From the left pane, expand the Advanced settings.
3. Now under the Advanced settings, click on the Reset and clean up option.
4. Under that, select Clean up computer.
5. Finally, click on the Find button to begin the Chrome Virus Scan.
6. The tool will start checking for the harmful software on the computer.

As of now, only Chrome’s PC version supports the malware removal feature.

What are the limitations of Chrome Virus Scan?

It is important not to get too excited with the features and functionalities offered by Chrome Virus Scan. The fact that it has been built in Google Chrome should not make you think it’s a replacement for your installed antivirus program.

Chrome virus scan is good enough to detect and remove most of the small-level Malware and viruses from the PC. However, it comes with its own limitations and cannot be used to remove viruses that are difficult to track or avoid detection by the scanner.

For instance, many of the old malware variants will easily bypass Chrome virus scan because they could have been written in a way that enables them to slip through the cracks of any antivirus software.

Another thing is since Chrome is a property of Google, there is a major privacy concern. The virus scanner, like other Google products, scans all the data on your system and can provide details to its data-hungry parent company.

Conclusion

The Chrome virus scan is just one of Google’s ways to ensure that computer users are safe when they are browsing the internet. While it’s not a replacement for your antivirus program, you can use it in case you think there might be some malware or viruses affecting your PC.

You should note that if the tool detects any files, running processes, or registry entries that it considers dangerous then they might be automatically removed from your PC with no prior notice.

The virus scanner also collects personal information and sends them to Google in order to improve its malware detection capabilities.