Google has announced a significant security enhancement for its Chrome web browser, rolling out a feature that will prevent the browser from being launched with administrator privileges on Windows systems. This initiative aims to mitigate potential security risks that come with elevated permissions, aligning Chrome’s practices with similar measures already implemented in Microsoft’s Edge browser.
In 2019, Microsoft introduced a feature for Edge that would issue warnings when the browser was launched with elevated permissions, advising users to restart the browser without administrative rights. The company later refined this mechanism to automatically block such launches altogether.
Following in Microsoft’s footsteps, developers have now submitted a commit to the Chromium source code, confirming that Chrome will automatically de-elevate when users attempt to launch it with elevated privileges. As Stefan Smolen from the Microsoft Edge team noted in his [Chromium commit](https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/6515318), this change is designed to enhance security by automatically attempting to relaunch the browser with standard permissions.
While the new feature introduces a command-line switch, ‘-do-not-de-elevate,’ which can be utilized to prevent de-elevation during an auto-relaunch, Microsoft remains clear that running Chrome or any browser in administrator mode can lead to serious security vulnerabilities. The risk escalates if users download and execute potentially harmful files, as these would operate with full system access, posing a danger to the integrity of the operating system.