Chrome has the habit of stealthily scanning files on computers running Windows systems

[Демитрий]

The other day, security experts said that the Chrome browser has the habit of stealthily scanning files on computers running Windows systems. In this regard, many users are probably thinking about how to disable such features of their browser. We have prepared a short instruction describing the necessary steps for this.

1. Introduction
2. Chrome Software Reporter Tool
3. Blocking Software Reporter Tool
4. conclusions

Introduction
Let's start with the background. Earlier this month, cyber security expert Kelly Shortridge, who works for SecurityScorecard, noticed that her Chrome browser was scanning files in the Documents directory. In support of her findings, Shortridge provided a screenshot that shows the log of a utility for monitoring Process Monitor processes, and which demonstrates that the chrome.exe process is trying to access files.

Figure 1. Process Monitor utility log
This led to the fact that many experts, and ordinary users, wondered how far Google could go in such “features” of its browser.

Chrome Software Reporter Tool
If you monitor processes on your Windows computer that is running the Chrome browser, you will sooner or later notice the Software Reporter Tool process. This executable file software_reporter_tool.exe is a tool provided by Google with the Chrome browser.

The Software Reporter Tool is part of another Chrome Cleanup Tool designed to remove programs that cause Chrome problems. Among such programs, according to Google, there may be malicious or unwanted ones that somehow interfere with the use of the browser.


Figure 2. File software_reporter_tool.exe and its location on the computer
Thus, the task of the Software Reporter Tool is to scan the system and report on Google’s crawl results. And Chrome uses the results of such a scan to identify unwanted programs, and then asks the user whether to remove these programs, referring to the fact that they interfere with normal use of the browser.

At users You may encounter two problems with similar Chrome features:

1. These scans can lead to high system load. Some have already complained that a good 30% of the processor’s resources (in some cases even more) go to this process. Given that the whole procedure can take up to 20 minutes, this can create a serious problem for users working in parallel with heavy programs.
2. The tool informs Google about the results of the verification, which some may not like because of commonplace privacy considerations.

Google developers claim that the Software Reporter Tool only scans folders that are directly related to Chrome, but the scale of its actions is not disclosed to users under any pretext.

You can find the file belonging to this tool along the path:

C: \ Users \ USERNAME \ AppData \ Local \ Google \ Chrome \ User Data \ SwReporter \ VERSION \ software_reporter_tool.exe


The version changes regularly, at the time of writing the instructions, it was 27.147.200.

Blocking Software Reporter Tool
Before you start, we still remind you and warn you - blocking this program will prevent the browser from uninstalling the problem programs and notifying Google about it. You can use third-party antivirus solutions to remove unwanted programs.

Now to the point. What first comes to mind to solve this problem? Correctly, delete the contents of the directory, or rename the file software_reporter_tool.exe. Will this solve the problem? Yes, but exactly until the next Chrome update, which will return all this functionality to you in full.

The most rational option is to remove permissions so that no user can access the directory or run the Software Reporter Tool.

To do this, perform the following steps:

Right-click on the SwReporter folder, select "Properties". Go to the "Security" tab.

Figure 3. SwReporter folder properties
Click "Advanced", then "Disabling inheritance."

Figure 4. The Advanced window
Select "Delete all inherited permissions from this object."

Figure 5. Remove all inherited permissions from this object
We apply all the changes made, confirm the action in the dialog box. Then double click “ok” in the windows.

No user or user group should ever have access to the Software Reporter Tool. The advantage of this method is that the tool will no longer be able to start and browser updates will not fix this.

conclusions
Basically, you’re unlikely to need the Software Reporter Tool if you don’t encounter programs that interfere with Chrome on a regular basis. But its shortcomings (high processor load, privacy risk) may well become good reasons to apply our instructions for blocking this tool.
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Source: Disabling the tracking and scanning service in Google Chrome