Google is adding a warning screen to Chrome that will appear before users open websites the browser considers suspicious. The feature is aimed at giving people more information about how risky a site might be before they commit to visiting it, and it is available when Chrome's Enhanced Protection setting is turned on.
Under the system, Chrome will label a site as suspicious when it detects that the site shares characteristics with others tied to phishing, malware and scams. Google describes this as a lower-confidence verdict that still carries a possible risk of harm to the user. That means the site could be flagged incorrectly, but Google advises proceeding only when a user is fully certain the site is safe.
The warning for suspicious sites will show up as a pop-up window on both desktop and mobile. The webpage remains visible behind the notification but appears darkened, and users are given an option to mark the site as safe if it was flagged by mistake.
That treatment is deliberately different from the warning Google already shows for dangerous sites, which carries a higher-confidence verdict and a high risk of user harm. Those sites should be avoided entirely, according to Google. The dangerous-site notification takes up nearly the whole screen and replaces the webpage with a solid red background, making it far harder to overlook than the new suspicious-site pop-up.
The two-stage approach builds on a similar system Google introduced for Chrome file downloads in 2024, which shows visually distinct notifications for blocked files depending on whether they are judged suspicious or dangerous. The site warnings extend that graduated design to webpages themselves.
Alongside the redesigned browser warnings, Google said it has improved scam detection for Enhanced Protection users that is powered by Gemini. The company positioned the changes as part of its broader effort to keep Chrome users better informed about malicious websites before they open them.
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