Problems with Microsoft Security Essentials

Earlier today, we learned that the Microsoft Security Essentials tool began falsely identifying Google Chrome as a piece of malware ("PWS:Win32/Zbot") and removing it from people's computers.

If Chrome is working correctly for you, then there’s no need to take any action.

We are releasing an update that will automatically repair Chrome for affected users over the course of the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you want to fix the problem with Microsoft Security Essentials and restore Chrome manually, please follow the instructions below.

How do I know if I am affected?

To repeat, if Chrome is working correctly for you, you don’t need to do anything. If you’re unable to launch Chrome or load new web pages, then you may be affected.

What actions can I take to fix this?

1. First, you need to update the signature files used by Microsoft Security Essentials on your computer. You need to do this before re-installing Chrome!

Run Security Essentials by opening your Start Menu, finding the “Security Essentials” program, and clicking the icon to launch it:


(You may also be able to open Security Essentials using its icon in the Windows system tray, near the clock.)

When Security Essentials loads, click the Update tab in Security Essentials, and press the large Update button:



Once complete, you can verify the update by clicking the triangle next to Help, selecting “About Security Essentials” and verifying that the “Antispyware definition” is 1.113.672.0 or higher.

Note (for advanced users): You can also update the signature files via the command line by running:

cmd.exe /c "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Security Client\Antimalware\MpCmdRun.exe" -SignatureUpdate

2. Next, you will need to un-install and re-install Chrome using the platform-specific instructions below.

Windows XP:
1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Add or Remove Programs.


2. In the Currently installed programs box, select Google Chrome and click the Remove button.

3. If you are prompted to confirm the removal of the program, click Yes. By default, your local browsing data will not be deleted. Make sure you do not accidentally check the box labeled “Also delete your browsing data?”.


4. Visit www.google.com/chrome in another browser to download and install a fresh copy of Google Chrome.

Windows 7:

1. Click on the Start button , and select Control Panel

2. Click Programs (or Programs -> Programs and Features)



3. Select Google Chrome from the list of programs

4. Click the Uninstall button at the top of the list. By default, your local browsing data will not be deleted. Make sure you do not accidentally check the box labeled “Also delete your browsing data?”.


5. Visit www.google.com/chrome in another browser to download and install a fresh copy of Google Chrome.

Windows Vista:

1. Click the Start button , and select Control Panel

2. Click Programs (or Programs -> Programs and Features)


3. Select Google Chrome from the list of programs.

4. Click the Uninstall button located above the list. By default, your local browsing data will not be deleted. Make sure you do not accidentally check the box labeled “Also delete your browsing data?”.


5. Visit www.google.com/chrome in another browser to download and install a fresh copy of Google Chrome.


To repeat, we are releasing an update that will automatically repair Chrome for affected users over the course of the next 24 hours.

Posted by Mark Larson, Engineering Manager

Go hands-on with a Chromebook in London

Many things in life, like football and rock music, are best experienced in person. Chromebooks are no exception.

So this week in London, we opened our first Chromebook experience inside a retail store. The brand new Chrome Zone is located inside the PC World / Currys superstore on Tottenham Court Road. Spend time with a Chromebook, discover cool web apps and chat with our Chrome specialists.

We’ll be opening Chrome Zones in additional locations in the United Kingdom over the next few months, so stay tuned. If you’re in London, do drop by and say hello!



Posted by Laura Thompson, Product Marketing Manager

A new New Tab page on the Chrome Beta channel

Today, we’re excited to share a revamped New Tab page with our Chrome Beta channel users. We’ve redesigned the page to simplify the visual appearance and make it easier to manage your apps, bookmarks, and most visited sites, so you can get where you’re going as quickly as possible.

Your apps, bookmarks, and most visited sites now appear in three different sections on the page. You can flip between these different sections by clicking the section labels at the bottom of the page or the arrows at the side of the page. Chrome will remember the last section you flipped to and return to it when you open a new tab.


Here are a few more tips for using the new New Tab page:

• To rearrange apps, just drag and drop them on the page.
• To create a new apps section, drag an app to the bottom of the page until a new apps section appears. You can rename this section by double-clicking the label. For example, you can create a section of apps for “Work” (full of productivity apps) and a section for “Play” (full of games).
• To remove items from any section on the page, start dragging them to the bottom right of the page. A trash can will appear, where you can drop the item to remove it.
• To see the tabs you’ve just closed, click “Recently closed” on the bottom right of the page.

We hope you enjoy the new look and feel of the New Tab page. To browse thousands of new apps and games for the page, visit the Chrome Web Store.

Posted by Evan Stade, Software Engineer

A new Stable release of Chrome, expanding the frontiers of the web

Today, we’re happy to ship a new release to the Stable channel of Chrome, following up on last month’s Beta channel release. This release contains two significant technologies which allow developers to create even more powerful web apps and games:

• The Web Audio API enables developers to add fancy audio effects such as room simulation and spatialization.
  
• Native Client is an open-source technology which allows C and C++ code to be seamlessly and securely executed inside the browser. Currently, Native Client only supports applications listed in the Chrome Web Store, but we are working to remove this limitation as soon as possible.

This release also contains some changes for our Chrome users on Mac OS X Lion. For all web pages, Chrome uses Lion's overlay scrollbars, which appear only while you’re scrolling. We’ve also added initial support for Lion’s full-screen mode, triggered by a full-screen button or Ctrl+Shift+F. Finally, we’ve fixed many crash bugs, and added some all-around visual polish.

As always, if you already have Chrome installed, it will automatically update itself to the new version soon. If you haven’t taken Chrome for a spin yet, you can download it from www.google.com/chrome.

Posted by Brad Chen, Software Engineer

Chrome Web Store expands its borders

Nine months ago, we launched the Chrome Web Store in the United States. Since then, the store has gained a lot of momentum and is now home to an ever increasing selection of apps, extensions and themes.

Today, we’re expanding and making the store available in 24 more countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

If you are based in these initial 24 countries, you’ll find it much easier to discover and add new apps, extensions, and themes to Chrome, across a variety of categories—from games to news to productivity tools. In most countries, for apps that require a fee, you’ll now be able to complete the entire transaction in your local currency. Starting today, you’ll also be able to access a range of new applications from international developers and publishers. Enjoy viewing beautiful artwork collections from UK museums, get weather updates from Brazil or browse the latest film releases in France.



To try these new apps, as well as tens of thousands of items in the store, download Google Chrome and visit the Chrome Web Store.

Posted by Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, Product Manager

Happy third birthday, Chrome!

It’s that time of the year again for the Chrome team, when we pause on our anniversary to reflect on the amazing life and times of the web. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since we launched our open source web browser, Chrome.



In that time, the web community has continued to inspire us, bringing the power of the web into all kinds of apps and experiences, with all modern browsers making great strides in speed, simplicity and security. To pay homage to the goodness of the web, we’ve put together an interactive infographic, built in HTML5, which details the evolution of major web technologies and browsers:

(With thanks to our friends at Hyperakt, Vizzuality, mgmt design, and GOOD)

In our third year, we’ve also brought Chrome's principles of speed, simplicity and security to a new model of computing: the Chromebook. The Chromebook is pure Chrome—a computer built for everything you ever need to do on the web while doing away with all the usual annoyances of an old, slow PC.



Here’s a quick fly-by through the some of the highlights of the past 12 months on the Chrome platform:



Faster and faster

• We kick off the Year of the Rabbit with a new compilation infrastructure for the V8 JavaScript engine, codenamed “Crankshaft,” which improves JavaScript performance by up to 66 percent.
  
  
• Chrome’s new settings interface helps you find the right settings quickly with an integrated search box. It also provides direct links to each settings page, which can be copied and pasted for easy troubleshooting.
  
  
• The omnibox is improved to better suggest partial matches for webpage titles and URLs.
  
  
• You can optionally enable Chrome Instant, which shows relevant content in the browser window as you type, before you press Enter.
  
  
• Chrome’s built-in prerendering technology enables sites to build even faster experiences for their users—such as Instant Pages in Google search, which in some cases makes search results appear to load almost instantly.
  
  

Simpler and more accessible

• Chrome supports many popular screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver to help visually impaired people better experience the web.
  
  
• Print Preview, a popular feature request, uses Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer to display the preview, and enables you to save any webpage as a convenient PDF file using the “Print to PDF” option.
  
  
• Chrome’s icon takes on a simpler look to embody the Chrome spirit, since Chrome is all about making your web experience quicker, lighter and easier for all.
  
  

An even more secure platform

• Our integrated and sandboxed PDF viewer enables you to view PDF files on the web without installing additional software. Furthermore, we built an additional layer of security around the PDF viewer called a “sandbox” to help protect you from security attacks that are targeted at PDF files.
  
  
• Adobe Flash Player is sandboxed on Windows, further protecting you from security attacks and malware targeted at Flash content on the web.
  
  
• Chrome warns you before downloading some types of malicious files with enhanced Safe Browsing technology. In order to help protect privacy, malicious content is detected without Chrome or Google ever having to know about the URLs that you visit or the files you download.
  
  
• To provide greater transparency and control over the data that websites store on your computers, Chrome lets you delete Local Shared Objects created by Adobe Flash Player using the browser’s built-in setting dialogs.
  
  

Wowzah, the modern web!

• The Chrome Web Store is an open marketplace where you can search for and discover web applications, both free and paid, along with ratings and reviews. Developers can add in-app payments to their apps for a flat 5 percent transaction fee.
  
  
• Chrome supports WebGL, which brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser with no additional software needed. For a taste of what WebGL can do, check out “3 Dreams of Black,” a 3D music experience for the web browser.
  
  
• Chrome’s support for the HTML speech input API enables developers to give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice into text. Try it out on www.google.com by clicking on the microphone icon in the search box.
  
  
• Hardware-accelerated 3D CSS enables snazzier experiences in webpages and apps which use 3D effects.
  
  

Delivering a new, simpler model for computing

• Chrome is enterprise ready, with an MSI installer and support for managed group policies. Many organizations such as Vanguard and Procter & Gamble have successfully deployed Chrome to thousands of users in an enterprise setting.
  
  
• As of this past July, Chromebooks are now available for purchase in eight countries—the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and South Korea. And just like Chrome, the Chromebook always keeps getting better. When you turn your Chromebook on, it updates itself automatically: you get the latest and greatest version of the operating system without having to think about it.
  
  

There’s more to come. Keep an eye on the Chrome blog to hear about new features and performance improvements as we continue to ship stable channel updates every six weeks. As always, on both Chrome and Chromebooks you’ll be automatically updated to the new versions as soon as they’re released.





Posted by Ben Goodger and Darin Fisher, Software Engineers