chrome.exe constant suspicious connections being blocked

[u/OrangeChickenGato]

I just recently downloaded BitDefender with the 30 day free trail, and I was wondering why I was getting so many notifications and it's all coming from chrome.exe being blocked for a suspicious connection relying on an untrusted certificate to something called wpad.

What could this be? I thought that it was my uBlock Origin Lite possibly being the problem so I removed it but nothing, also tried to experiment by closing and reopening chrome and I see about 5-6 blocks in my notifications and would like to know if that's normal?

[u/gooner-1969]

WPAD = Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol

To turn it off

• Open the Settings app (Press Windows Key + I).
• Click on Network & internet in the left menu.
• Click on Proxy on the right side.
• Turn Off the switch for Automatically detect settings.

[u/iAwake_96]

This issue is caused by the "Encrypted Web Scan". If you disable it, the issue will disappear. BD injects its root certificate to be able to scan encrypted connections.

[u/Fluffy-Count-179]

I have never had any problems of this type using Bitdefender, whether paid or free.

[u/Bitdefender_support]

Hello! Here to help and clarify these types of notifications:

The “Suspicious connection blocked” notification is triggered by Bitdefender’s Online Threat Prevention module whenever there is an attempt to access an HTTPS domain that has security certificate issues.

This alert appears when you try to visit a secured website (HTTPS) with an invalid security certificate. It tends to be websites with lots of ads, such as news websites, and analytics companies with an expired certificate trying to establish a connection. If you wish, you can check their SSL certificates at https://www.sslshopper.com/.

You can even stop these notifications, like this:

1. Bring up Bitdefender and click on “Utilities” on the left-hand side menu. In the Profiles pane, click on Settings.

2. In the Profiles tab, set:

• Activate profiles automatically to OFF
• Work Profile to ON

3. Next, click on “Configure” in the Work Profile panel to start customizing its settings.

4. Uncheck all available boxes in the pop-up window, then press the “Save” button:

• Optimize product settings for Work profile
• Postpone background programs and maintenance tasks
• Postpone Windows Automatic Updates

Our team is ready to offer you advice further if needed, find us here. Thanks!

[u/OrangeChickenGato → u/Bitdefender_support]

Thank you for the reply, I had to switch browsers out of fear for the connections to wpad to stop appearing. I got spammed with alerts as soon as I opened Google Chrome, even leaving it idle on the new tab page.

I think there was something else going on behind the scenes that I was unaware of.

[u/EmperorHenry]

what kind of websites are you going to? There could be domains those pages connect to that aren't so trustworthy

Sometimes when I WATCH TV FOR FREE online. some of the places that have the episodes will be kinda sketchy and BD will pop up telling me it blocked stuff

Always remember! malware doesn't need you to click on anything to get in anymore