Anyone who has used Google Chrome has probably seen the red warning screen when they click a suspicious link or try to visit a potentially dangerous website. Google is now beefing up this warning system by adding a new layer that will flag websites that seem fishy, even when Safe Browsing does not have enough confidence to classify them as outright dangerous.
The new Suspicious sites category is being added to Chrome’s Enhanced Protection mode and will sit below the existing Dangerous sites classification. Google says these are pages that show deceptive patterns commonly associated with malicious websites, but where Safe Browsing has a lower-confidence verdict.
Chrome will warn you before it is completely sure
Instead of immediately showing the familiar full-page red screen, Chrome will show a different warning when it suspects something is wrong but doesn’t have enough evidence to call the website dangerous. Google is using different colors, icons, text, and formatting for these alerts, making the two warnings easier to tell apart. Known malicious websites will continue getting the existing red screen.
The extra warning could help older users or people unfamiliar with the tricks used in phishing and other online scams. These days, scammers often use AI to make very convincing copies of e-commerce or support websites, so an early warning could be quite useful in deterring a user from putting in sensitive information like logins, passwords, or financial information on these websites.
Gemini is helping Chrome catch more scams
Google is also upgrading the system behind Enhanced Protection. Chrome is moving from its earlier on-device Gemini model to a more powerful server-side version that can examine the brand a page claims to represent, its apparent intent, and how likely it is to be a scam. Safe Browsing combines that information with domain reputation and other security signals before reaching a verdict.
Chrome is also adding protection against ClickFix scams, which trick people into copying and running malicious commands. If Chrome detects a suspicious copied command, Safe Browsing can analyze it and show another warning if it is considered dangerous.