Google is rolling out a change to Chromium that "de-elevates" Google Chrome so it does not run as an administrator to increase security in Windows.
Microsoft
previously introduced a similar feature in 2019 to the Edge Browser. When users launched Edge with elevated permissions, a warning would appear, recommending that they relaunch the browser without administrative rights.
Later, Microsoft modified the feature to automatically prevent the Edge browser from launching with elevated permissions.
Microsoft is now bringing the same improvements to Chromium, with developers submitting a commit to the Chromium source code.
As
spotted by Leo on X, Microsoft has confirmed that Chrome will now automatically de-elevate when users try to launch it with elevated permissions.
"Automatically de-elevate users launching chrome elevated. This CL is based on changes we've had in Edge, circa 2019, which attempts to automatically de-elevate the browser when it's run with the elevated part of a split / linked token," Stefan Smolen, who works with the Microsoft Edge team, wrote in a
Chromium commit.
