A recent blog posting on the Google Chromium Blog – co-authored by Chris Evans, Julien Tinnes, and Michal Zalewski – indicated that the open-source Chrome browser will block the use of outdated plug-ins at some point in the future.
The Google team said this was necessary because of the recent proliferation of attacks targeting plug-in exploits, including the rapid increase in attacks against Adobe plug-ins such as Reader and FlashPlayer.
No specific date for exactly when Chrome would roll out this feature was provided by the trio, only saying that it would be implemented in the “medium-term”. They did indicate, however, that Google Chrome would block the outdated plug-ins and aid users in updating them to the most current version.
A Google spokesperson told Infosecurity that there are no further details available on this new Chrome feature announced by the Security Team and declined to provide a timeline as to when it would go into effect.
The new policy comes the same week in which it was revealed that Google Chrome passed Apple’s Safari as the third most popular web browser in the US according to data from web analytics firm StatsCounter.
The group also said that Chrome would provide a warning for infrequently used plug-ins, which, in their opinion, “are widely installed but typically not required for today’s Internet experience”. The three security experts called these plug-ins “suspicious”, thus the need a user alert.