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Chrome now warns you when your password has been stolen

Chrome now warns you when your password has been stolen

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Chrome 79 arrives with better password protections

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Stock imagery of the Chrome logo.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is rolling out Chrome version 79 today, and it includes a number of password protection improvements. The biggest addition is that Chrome will now warn you when your password has been stolen as part of a data breach. Google has been warning about reused passwords in a separate browser extension or in its password checkup tool, but the company is now baking this directly into Chrome to provide warnings as you log in to sites on the web.

You can control this new functionality in the sync settings in Chrome, and Google is using strongly hashed and encrypted copies of passwords to match them using multiple layers of encryption. This allows Google to securely match passwords using a technique called private set intersection with blinding.

Alongside password warnings, Google is also improving its phishing protection with a real-time option. Google has been using a list of phishing sites that updates every 30 minutes, but the company found that fraudsters have been quickly switching domains or hiding from Google’s crawlers. This new real-time protection should generate warnings for 30 percent more cases of phishing.

Google is also improving Chrome multiple profiles support. If you use multiple profiles in Chrome or you share your PC with others, Chrome now has a better visual indicator of what profile is currently being used so you can ensure passwords are being saved to the correct profile. Chrome 79 is rolling out today, and all of these features will gradually roll out in the coming weeks on desktop versions of the browser.