Chrome On Windows Is Scanning Your Pc Due To A Bug

Google Chrome might be at the top when it comes to web browsers, but it does have its own fair share of bugs. According to a recent report from Engadget, Chrome is scanning users’ Windows PCs due to a potential bug. The report highlights that Google introduced a few antivirus capabilities to Chrome last year, which causes the browser to scan the user’s entire download history upon startup.

I was wondering why my Canarytoken (a file folder) was triggering & discovered the culprit was chrome.exe. Turns out @googlechrome quietly began performing AV scans on Windows devices last fall. Wtf m8? This isn’t a system dir, either, it’s in Documents pic.twitter.com/IQZPSVpkz7

Followed up with @swagitda_ and it turns out the log events weren’t CCT scans. Chrome existence-checks (code below) previously downloaded files, but a bug moved the checks into the startup path. Clearing download history stops the checks. Bug filed here: https://t.co/gLNHJRSGq2 pic.twitter.com/r0aeVAsurr

— Internet Effluencer 🤬 (@justinschuh) April 6, 2018