Google Chrome is finally going on a serious war against sketchy websites

Google Chrome comes with a built-in pop-up blocker that does a decent job at blocking malicious pop-ups. At the core, though, the pop-up blocker is quite basic and does not block automatic redirects and similar harmful actions triggered by sketchy websites.

In the coming months, Google will be adding new features to Chrome that’ll make the browser capable of detecting and blocking these harmful actions. And with the release of Chrome 64, Google will be automatically blocking unexpected and malicious redirects from websites and show an info bar instead where the user can decide whether or not they want the auto-redirect to actually happen.

Google’s also taking action against sketch websites that open the intended destination of a hyperlink or button on a new tab and display malicious pages on the current tab. The company says Chrome will be able to block this type of redirects starting with Chrome 65 and take users to their intended destination directly instead of opening it in a separate new tab

And lastly, the search engine giant is adding changes to Chrome’s existing pop-up blocker early next year that will enable the browser to block malicious links disguised as download buttons, site controls, etc., that are actually used to track the user’s clicks and open malicious popups and perform the aforementioned auto-redirects.

Google hopes the upcoming changes to Chrome will result in a better and more secure web browsing experience for users, but that really depends on if the new blockers are actually effective.