When performing a Google search on Chrome, a Browser Guard block page notification appears before you click on any search results.
How this issue affects you
You see a Browser Guard block page notification appear before you click on any Google search results. This is not a false positive, but a result of Chrome preloading potentially malicious search results pages in the background.
What caused this issue
Chrome browsers enable page preloading, or link fetching, by default. This means that when you perform a Google search, Chrome automatically preloads some of the top search results in the background before you click on anything. While this feature attempts to make your online browsing and searching speed faster, it also leaves you vulnerable. Preloaded websites can set, read, and send cookies to third parties as if you had visited the site, even if you never did.
If the preloaded search results pages are potentially malicious, Browser Guard's protection detects and blocks them. This results in you seeing a block page notification without actually clicking on any of the search results.
How to resolve this issue
We recommend turning off page preloading in your Chrome settings to protect your browsing privacy and to stop seeing block pages when searching the web. If you don't want to turn off page preloading, you can try using a different browser and repeating your search.
To turn off page preloading:
- In your browser search bar, enter: chrome://settings
- In the left side bar, click Performance.
- Scroll down to Speed, then toggle Preload pages off.