Try the two new exciting AI features in Chrome

• Real-time malware protection is now available in Chrome, which uses AI to protect against malicious websites.

• AI-powered browsing history search in Chrome allows users to find websites in everyday language.

• To enable these new features, enable Enhanced Security and AI-powered History Search through Chrome settings.

Google released a number of AI features for Chrome this year, and while some are still in testing mode, there are two that really stood out to me. Being security conscious, the first feature provides real-time protection against malicious websites, while the second allows you to search your browsing history using everyday language.

Real-time security protection with AI

Chrome now offers real-time protection using AI to display alerts on potentially dangerous sites. It’s an improvement to Google’s Safe Browsing for anyone using Chrome on a desktop or smartphone.

Why is this important? It is important because malicious sites and online scams are everywhere. These sites include websites that malicious software or be fraudulent in some way, for example phishing websites designed to manipulate you into disclosing your personal and sensitive information.

Google states that the previous version of Safe Browsing used a list stored on your device to check whether a site or file was known to be potentially dangerous. This list is updated every 30 to 60 minutes, but Google has found that the average malicious site actually exists for less than 10 minutes.

With the new improvements, Chrome will check sites in real time against Google’s server list of known dangerous sites. It also uses AI to block attacks, provide deep file scanning, and provide extra protection against malicious Chrome extensions.

How to enable real-time protection

To try this out, you’ll need to enable Enhanced Security in Chrome settings. Click the three-dot menu next to your profile picture in Chrome and navigate to ‘Settings:’

Then go to Privacy & Security and then Security:

From here you can click the radio button next to Enhanced Protection to enable this feature.

Chrome now expects this block 25% more phishing attempts with real-time protection using AI.

Use everyday language to search your browsing history

Chrome now offers AI-powered browser history searching, meaning you can use everyday language to find exactly what you’re looking for in your browser. Chrome browsing history without knowing an exact keyword or web address.

So even if you don’t know the name of the website, if you remember anything about it, like what type of website it was or what it said, Chrome’s AI can figure it out for you. It’s quite useful, because I used it to find a healthcare article on regenerative medicine that I forgot to save, and all I had to do was ask, “What was the article I looked at on tissue engineering?”.

How to enable AI-powered browsing history search

This feature is disabled by default. To enable this, click the three-dot menu next to your profile picture in Chrome and navigate to ‘Settings:’

Then navigate to ‘Experimental AI’ and the arrow next to ‘History search powered by AI:’

Enable it from the toggle bar:

The feature is now enabled. Just go to your history and type something like What was that clothing store I was looking at two weeks ago? and Chrome will show you relevant pages from your browsing history. Google states that this feature will also never contain browsing data incognito mode. You can enable and disable it in the Chrome settings, as mentioned above.

You must live in the US and use Chrome in English for this feature to be available as it is still in experimental mode.

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In short: these two new AI features in Chrome are game changers. Real-time protection keeps you safe while browsing, and searching your history just got a lot easier. What’s not to love?