No one wants malware on their computer. It’s dangerous and can allow the person who created the malware access to information you’d rather keep private. Keeping your antivirus software up to date is a good start but it often catches the problem after the fact — after you’ve downloaded something. Now Google has developed a way for you to block malicious content before it gets to your computer, through your browser.

Google’s latest and greatest version of Chrome, Chrome Canary, is designed with an added security feature. This new feature blocks potential malware from being downloaded to your computer,  keeping you and your information safe. In other words, Chrome stops malware before it even hits your computer.

If malware is detected by Chrome you will get a notification that states content.exe is malicious and chromium has blocked it. You can dismiss the warning and go about your surfing without worry, because Chrome has taken care of protecting you. Google is also adding thousands of new URLs to the safe browsing service that they share with Firefox and Safari, so those browsers will get a boost also.

Aside from malware blocking, another new feature is the ability to reset your browser to original/default/factory settings. In the event that something looks screwy with your browser, an indicator of malware, this new version allows you to easily reset the browser back to its original settings. You will lose your saved searches and user set home pages when this occur.

Only time will tell how good this new malware blocking feature of Chrome is at reducing the amount of malware found on a computer, but it sounds like a promising start. Makes you wonder why it hasn’t been implemented before.

[via Hacker News]