Google is implementing a security update in Chromium that prevents Chrome from running with administrator rights on Windows, following Microsoft Edge's similar move in 2019.
The change, developed by Microsoft engineers, ensures Chrome will now auto "de-elevate" itself if launched with elevated permissions, improving protection against potential system-level threats.
This prevents scenarios where downloaded malicious files could gain full system access due to inherited admin privileges.
The browser will attempt to relaunch without admin rights once, and if it fails, revert to current behavior.
A special command-line option, -do-not-de-elevate, has been added to avoid relaunch loops when necessary.
This feature excludes automation scenarios to avoid disrupting tools that rely on elevated rights.
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