If you use Google Chrome, you can turn on a new safety feature that will warn you if you navigate to a suspicious website that looks like others already known for malicious behavior. The alerts are part of Enhanced Protection mode in Chrome's Safe Browsing, which checks your activity against potentially harmful sites and warns you if you're at risk of encountering malware, phishing, intrusive ads, or social engineering attacks.
How Chrome protects against malicious websites
Most internet users are familiar with the full-page alerts that appear if you navigate to a site that's known to be malicious. These red "dangerous site" warnings indicate a high risk of harm to the user and can't really be ignored since they take up the entire screen and urge you to go back to safety.
The new "suspicious site" alerts indicate possible risk of harm based on patterns consistent with other known malicious sites. This means that Google isn't as confident that the website is actually dangerous, but it looks a lot like others that are spreading malware or running phishing scams. These suspicious site warnings are smaller pop-ups with the text "This site doesn't seem right" and two button options: Mark as safe or Back to safety. The different colors, text, and formatting make it easy for users to distinguish between what Google deems dangerous versus suspicious.
You can enable Enhanced Protection in your Chrome settings
Safe Browsing in Chrome has three options: standard protection, enhanced protection, and no protection at all (which isn't recommended). Standard protection checks your browsing activity, extensions, and downloads against Google's list of unsafe sites, which is updated periodically. By contrast, enhanced protection works in real time and uses AI analysis. Note that enhanced protection does require you to share more information about your activity to Google, and the data are linked to your Google Account.
While privacy-conscious users may be hesitant to send more info to Google, enhanced protection is likely worthwhile for those who aren't as savvy to advanced scam tactics (and therefore more likely to enter credentials or financial information on or download a file from a malicious website). To enable Enhanced Protection and receive suspicious website warnings, go to Settings > Privacy and security in Chrome and toggle Enhanced protection on under the Safe Browsing section.