Information is scarce on this (a little bit of security through obscurity). Here is theirs blog post introducing the feature in 2012: https://chrome.googleblog

Information is scarce on this (a little bit of security through obscurity). Here is theirs blog post introducing the feature in 2012: https://chrome.googleblog.com/2012/02/faster-browsing-safer-downloading.html https://chrome.googleblog.com/2012/02/faster-browsing-safer-... > Chrome also does checks on executable files (like ".exe" and ".msi" files). If the executable doesn't match a whitelist, Chrome checks with Google for more information, such as whether the website you're accessing hosts a high number of malicious downloads. At the time I looked at the implementation in the Chrome source code, but I remember that it took me a while to locate it.