Windows 7: Google Chrome will block out-of-date plug-ins

One-ups Mozilla
Google will soon prevent insecure versions of plug-ins from running on top of its Chrome browser to make sure they don't contain security bugs that can be exploited by malicious websites.

In a blog post, members of Google's security team said the feature, to be delivered "medium-term," will prevent Chrome from running "certain out-of-date plug-ins." It will also help users find updates.

The announcement comes a few months after anti-virus maker F-Secure said Adobe's Reader application replaced Microsoft Word as the program that's most often exploited in targeted malware campaigns, like the one that Google disclosed in January that exposed sensitive intellectual property. F-Secure said the increase is "primarily because there has been more vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat/Reader than in the Microsoft Office applications." Other plug-ins such as Adobe's Flash Player and Oracle's Java Virtual Machine are also routinely attacked.