Something New Every Day

A record of doing a new thing every day in 2011

Forced onto Chrome Beta (273/365) Friday September 30, 2011

Like loads of people yesterday my Microsoft Forefront anti-virus software started complaining that my Chrome browser was infected with a virus and had to be removed.

Happily this turned out to be a false positive, but while I waited for the servers to release the new virus signatures I found out I could get back to using Chrome by installing the beta version - so I gave it a go.

Not sure why I haven’t done this before, as I’m usually very happy to use beta software quite early. Probably the reason is I’ve never been interested enough to find out where to get it from.

From a technical point of view, it’s interesting that Chrome’s own in-app updating - where the browser is constantly updating itself in the background - gives the user a lot less control and knowledge of when their software is being updated, so it’s not inconceivable that it could have been infected by a dodgy update without my knowing. That was my thought when the virus checker told me it was infected, so I didn’t take any risks and removed it ASAP.