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Focus issues with Google's Enhanced protection browsing mode

Aine Kelly Costello
 

Hi all,

I recently turned on Enhanced Protection for browsing which can be found under chrome's settings in the Privacy and Security tab.

Unfortunately for screen reader users, this mode doesn't only tell you about safety breaches, but also about all the safe URLs. I haven't experimented with it that much yet, but on a google search results page, if you arrow down from a given search result heading, after you get to "About this result", the notification about the URLs safe status steels focus and puts the cursor at the top of the page.

This obviously is a nuisance, and I'm not quite sure what the best solution is for now which is why I'm writing here. In an ideal world, it would be possible to set Chrome to only tell you about safety issues and leave you alone as long as all is well but still have enhanced protection turned on. Short of that, it's not super obvious what to do as presumably if you remove focus from the safe website announcements, you're also going to miss problem alerts. Any ideas? 

Thanks,

Áine
Gene
 

I may play with it.  But since there is a problem, one question is whether it gives you enough additional protection to have it on since it causes a problem.  I don't know how you use web sites but I doubt it does.  If you compare the description of what enhanced browsing does with what standard safety does, I doubt it matters much if someone is careful and checks things if concerned.  For example, just downloading an unsafe file won't cause you to become infected.  If you don't run it, nothing will happen.  If you have good anti malware protection, you probably are getting little extra protection.  Standard safety browsing already tells you about dangerous sites.

Here is a web page where you can compare the two:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9890866?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid

Also, depending on the size of the download, you can send it to a site named Virus Total, where it is analyzed by a lot of antimalware programs and you get a report about the findings.  You would download the file, then send it there. 

Gene

On 6/21/2022 1:13 PM, Aine Kelly Costello wrote:

Hi all,

I recently turned on Enhanced Protection for browsing which can be found under chrome's settings in the Privacy and Security tab.

Unfortunately for screen reader users, this mode doesn't only tell you about safety breaches, but also about all the safe URLs. I haven't experimented with it that much yet, but on a google search results page, if you arrow down from a given search result heading, after you get to "About this result", the notification about the URLs safe status steels focus and puts the cursor at the top of the page.

This obviously is a nuisance, and I'm not quite sure what the best solution is for now which is why I'm writing here. In an ideal world, it would be possible to set Chrome to only tell you about safety issues and leave you alone as long as all is well but still have enhanced protection turned on. Short of that, it's not super obvious what to do as presumably if you remove focus from the safe website announcements, you're also going to miss problem alerts. Any ideas? 

Thanks,

Áine

Gene
 

I just checked.  It appears enhanced protection is on by default.  It is on my browser and I don't recall changing it.  But I don't have the problem you are having.  What screen-reader are you using?

Gene

On 6/21/2022 1:13 PM, Aine Kelly Costello wrote:

Hi all,

I recently turned on Enhanced Protection for browsing which can be found under chrome's settings in the Privacy and Security tab.

Unfortunately for screen reader users, this mode doesn't only tell you about safety breaches, but also about all the safe URLs. I haven't experimented with it that much yet, but on a google search results page, if you arrow down from a given search result heading, after you get to "About this result", the notification about the URLs safe status steels focus and puts the cursor at the top of the page.

This obviously is a nuisance, and I'm not quite sure what the best solution is for now which is why I'm writing here. In an ideal world, it would be possible to set Chrome to only tell you about safety issues and leave you alone as long as all is well but still have enhanced protection turned on. Short of that, it's not super obvious what to do as presumably if you remove focus from the safe website announcements, you're also going to miss problem alerts. Any ideas? 

Thanks,

Áine

Gene
 

I just checked.  On one machine, a Windows 7 machine, enhanced protection is on and on another, a Windows 10 machine, standard protection is on.  I don't know if I changed the setting on my Windows 7 machine a good while ago and don't remember or not.  But it appears that standard protection is the default.

On both machines, using both JAWS and NVDA with enhanced protection on, I don't have the problem you are having and I don't get all sorts of messages about sites when looking through results.  I don't know what accounts for what you are experiencing.

Gene

On 6/21/2022 1:13 PM, Aine Kelly Costello wrote:

Hi all,

I recently turned on Enhanced Protection for browsing which can be found under chrome's settings in the Privacy and Security tab.

Unfortunately for screen reader users, this mode doesn't only tell you about safety breaches, but also about all the safe URLs. I haven't experimented with it that much yet, but on a google search results page, if you arrow down from a given search result heading, after you get to "About this result", the notification about the URLs safe status steels focus and puts the cursor at the top of the page.

This obviously is a nuisance, and I'm not quite sure what the best solution is for now which is why I'm writing here. In an ideal world, it would be possible to set Chrome to only tell you about safety issues and leave you alone as long as all is well but still have enhanced protection turned on. Short of that, it's not super obvious what to do as presumably if you remove focus from the safe website announcements, you're also going to miss problem alerts. Any ideas? 

Thanks,

Áine

Aine Kelly Costello
 

Sorry this is totally my mistake thanks Gene. I had toggled the browsing setting the other day so mistakenly thought it was the source of the issue, but in fact the culprit is a McAfee Web advisor Chrome extension, which I must have managed to accidently enable at some point. Now disabled!
Gene
 

Its good you found the problem.

Gene

On 6/22/2022 8:17 AM, Aine Kelly Costello wrote:

Sorry this is totally my mistake thanks Gene. I had toggled the browsing setting the other day so mistakenly thought it was the source of the issue, but in fact the culprit is a McAfee Web advisor Chrome extension, which I must have managed to accidently enable at some point. Now disabled!

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