Imagine, it is a regular day, you are browsing through random websites and suddenly you tap on a button and a bright red screen pops up warning you about the dangers that come along. It has a huge cross on the top left and reads in bold white letters, The site ahead contains harmful programs. This may cause you to panic and worry about your privacy & safety; which may or may not be grounded in reality. This error/warning is caused by Safe Browsing, a tool used by Google to protect its users from harmful content. This guide will explain how to disable, bypass, or remove this feature, which we recommend only when you are sure and trust the flagged website.
Fix The site ahead contains harmful programs Alert on Chrome
The “The Site Ahead Contains Harmful Programs” alerts are mainly to warn you about dangerous or deceptive websites and are turned on by default in your web browser. A few reasons why Google doesn’t recommend you visit a particular website include:
- The site may contain Malware: The site may trick you into installing bad, harmful and unwanted software on your computer commonly referred to as “malware”. These software are designed to damage, disrupt, or gain unauthorized access to your system.
- Suspicious Site: These sites may seem unsafe and suspicious of the browser.
- Deceptive Site: A “phishing site” is a fake website that makes a fraudulent attempt at gathering private and sensitive information like username, email ids, credit card details, passwords, etc by tricking the user and is therefore classified as a cybercrime.
- The website may not be secure: A website is considered not secure when one of the pages is trying to load scripts from an unauthenticated source.
- Visiting the wrong Website: A pop up may arrive saying, “Did you mean ___ website” or “Is this the right website” indicating that you might be confused about the site name and are visiting the fraudulent one.
- History of the Website: The website may have a history of unsafe behavior and hence you are warned to be careful.
- Google Safe Browsing: Google maintains a list of websites that might be harmful or risky and the site you are trying to visit is listed there. It analyzes the site and warns you about it.
- Using Public Network: Your network administrator might have set up precautionary measures against harmful and risky websites.
How to continue visiting the site? – If you think there are no grounds for the warning and you trust the site, there are ways to bypass the warning and visit the site anyway, as listed below.
Method 1: Bypassing the Warning and Accessing the Site Directly
A good example of using this feature is while using peer to peer file sharing websites, like a torrent, where users may link or post malicious content but the site hosting this transaction is not bad or harmful on its own. But one should be aware of the dangers and be smart about avoiding them.
The process is straightforward and simple.
1. When you get the bright red warning screen look for a ‘Details’ option at the bottom and tap on it.
2. Opening this gives more details about the problem. If you wish to proceed, Click on ‘Visit this site’.
Also Read: How to Unblock Websites on Chrome in Windows 10
Method 2: Disabling the Security Block Feature in Chrome
Using this method disables pop up warnings for all websites visited by the user and not just particular ones. This option is reserved for advanced users who are aware and willing to take the risk involved in turning off this protection feature.
Remember, that one must only visit websites they know for sure are safe. Never click on suspicious ads or follow third party links unless you have a security system in place; like a commonly used anti-virus software.
Also, note that when Safe Browsing is turned off you automatically stop being warned about your passwords being exposed during a data breach.
To turn off this feature anyway follow the below instructions.
1: Open Google Chrome on your system. Locate the ‘Menu’ icon located in the top right corner and click on it.
2: In the drop-down menu, select ‘Settings’ to proceed.
3: Scroll down to the ‘Privacy and Security’ section in the Settings menu and click on the little downward arrow located next to ‘More’.
4: Tap on the toggle switch located next to the ‘Safe Browsing’ option to switch it off.
5: Restart the browser once and Google will no longer try to warn and protect you.
Note: You might need to clear browser cache to bypass the warning message to visit certain websites.
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We hope the guide was useful and you were able to bypass flagged website pop-up The site ahead contains harmful programs on Chrome. Feel free to reach out to us with your queries and suggestions via the comments section below.