Chrome Has a Built In Malware Scanner, Here’s How to Use It

Lots of malware tries to bog down your browser, but Google Chrome isn’t defenseless—on Windows there’s a built-in scanner called Cleanup.

This software runs in the background periodically, but you can manually run a scan right now by heading to the URL chrome://settings/cleanup in your browser, or by going to Settings > Reset and clean up > Clean up computer. Give it a shot, especially if your browser seems sluggish.

This isn’t a general purpose malware scanner: it focuses on things that affect Chrome. From a blog post announcing the software back in October 2017:

We worked with IT security company ESET to combine their detection engine with Chrome’s sandbox technology. We can now detect and remove more unwanted software than ever before, meaning more people can benefit from Chrome Cleanup. Note this new sandboxed engine is not a general-purpose antivirus—it only removes software that doesn’t comply with our unwanted software policy.

It’s nice to know you’ve got a tool defending your browser, and it’s a good thing to try when Chrome is running slow slow. Thanks to Lawrence Abrams at Bleeping Computer for pointing this out to us.