It’s been a while since the browser became the main gateway for a huge amount of malware , from malicious ads to fake software that seeks to cheat you with promises of optimization and the myriad of things that seek to track you.

And, since Chrome is the most used browser of all, it is usually one of the most affected by these problems. Maybe you already knew it or maybe not, but Google integrated its own anti-malware tool some time ago in Chrome and you can run it manually to try to correct faults in it.

The tool was created by ESET , the security company of the popular NOD32 antivirus, and is responsible for alerting Chrome users of potential threats and can also eliminate them .

Run the Chrome malware scanner

This tool is only available in Google Chrome for Windows, so if you search for it in Chrome for Mac you will not find it. You can access it from the Settings menu and navigate to the end of the list. There you find an option called Clean computer .

If you click on it, Chrome will do a browser analysis and will report if it finds threats so you can eliminate them. You can also access the Chrome cleaner by typing chrome://settings/cleanup in the address bar.

From that window you will find some additional details, such as explaining that Chrome will search and remove harmful software from your computer . It also allows you to choose whether or not you want to send a detailed report to Google about the malicious software, the configuration of your system and also the processes of your computer. By default this is always active.

Although Chrome performs these analyzes on a regular basis by itself, if it happens that the browser is behaving oddly or slowly, some weird web has hijacked your home page, windows pop up meaningless, and other similar problems, always you can try doing a manual scan and try to get Chrome to fix itself with this tool .