Tell HN: Chrome says "suspicious download" when trying to download yt-dlp (undefined)
237 points by joering2 4 hours ago
On a newest version, I attempted to download newest yt-dlp only to be warned of "Suspicious Download". No explanation what that means was provided.
asveikau 3 hours ago
The heuristics powering this, as well as the Windows Defender whitelisting, are terrible.
My understanding is that a specific binary needs to become popular for it to stop being flagged. This creates a chicken and egg problem. Users are not incentivized to use the program with the warning. But removing the warning requires many people to ignore the warning.
This is a big problem for anyone writing Windows software. An indie developer or small open source project is not going to do well with this.
gruez 2 hours ago
>My understanding is that a specific binary needs to become popular for it to stop being flagged. This creates a chicken and egg problem.
Given the recent npm axios compromise this sounds like a pretty smart move?
dqv 2 hours ago
How is it a smart move? Here, Microsoft is training users to ignore a security warning. If the same mechanism were added to NPM (that is, a warning that the package is suspicious and for the user to be extra sure they want it), users would have been trained to ignore any security warning issued for the compromised axios version (just like they had ignored it for all previous "clean" versions) and installed it anyway.
whateverboat 41 minutes ago
This is also happening on linux for me.
Frotag 2 hours ago
Conveniently M$ lets you buy a signing certificate to fix this.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48946680/how-to-avoid-th...
pimterry 2 hours ago
EV no longer skips smartscreen either nowadays. I understand that was abused, so it's treated as the same as OV. Having a certificate allows the cert itself to accumulate trust (rather than each binary independently doing so) and provides better UX and I suspect an initial small boost to trust signal, but doesn't bypass the initial distrust. There's no way to avoid that AFAICT and even if you're an established business you hit it at intervals because all these certificates expire and so the whole process resets every few years anyway. What a mess.
asveikau 15 minutes ago
burnte 39 minutes ago
gruez 2 hours ago
asveikau 2 hours ago
Last I checked they can still quarantine your binary if it's properly signed and they decided it hasn't gained traction.
john_strinlai 3 hours ago
for what it is worth, when downloading the latest .exe from github, firefox says "this file is not commonly downloaded" and i have to select "allow download".
scans of it are fine.
probably just a heuristic-based false-positive, and not a news-worthy story of chrome abusing their monopoly or whatever.
ryandrake an hour ago
Do these little speed bumps even work? I have to admit I'm so numb to all these popups and to apps warning me this and begging me that, that I just don't read anything anymore. Each app that hits me up with yet another dialog is just another brick in the wall.
The only speed bump that I find super annoying is when your browser tries to prevent you from going to a site with an incorrectly configured certificate (or a self signed certificate). The UX browsers make you navigate in this case is extra-horrible. Apparently, my use of a self-signed certificate for some local machines means I'm about to die.
bahmboo a few seconds ago
I have been using the internet since before the www. In the last few years I pay attention to every speed bump and evaluate it seriously. I check the url of every financial site I log into. I disable automatic security blocks as a last resort. There's just too much consequence for failure.
whateverboat 40 minutes ago
This is also happening with `.tar.gz` file on chrome for yt-dlp. Doesn't happen for other `.tar.gz`
miki_oomiri 3 hours ago
Isn’t firefox using Google “safe browsing” database ?
warkdarrior 2 hours ago
Safebrowsing does not provide popularity metrics for downloads, to my knowledge. It only states whether a URL is malicious according to some Google checks. No amount of popularity would turn a malicious URL into a benign one.
jddecker 4 hours ago
The binaries they offer are complied using PyInstaller, which can give false positives in anti virus software.
ddtaylor 3 hours ago
Google has been anti yt-dlp before it was forked. They also have rules that carve out tools like this from their extension store and at Android, except enforcement is lacking sometimes.
Google is terrified of users having access users control to their video content.
nslsm 2 hours ago
yt-dlp breaks YouTube’s DRM. They could easily get the repo removed under the DMCA. They don’t.
exe34 2 hours ago
TheSkyHasEyes 3 hours ago
Why would a browser(be designed to) care about this?
gruez 3 hours ago
Because people download viruses from the internet all the time? "Common sense antivirus" might work fine if you're technically inclined, but that's not the case for everyone.
mrob 2 hours ago
rcakebread 3 hours ago
Because Google owns Youtube.
reactordev 3 hours ago
To protect the normies from harmful malware… not on their approved vendor list.
exe34 2 hours ago
thebeardredis 2 hours ago
Because Google does no evol.
g947o 3 hours ago
You could also ask why Android care about banning side loading to "prevent scams and spyware", and I honestly don't have an answer at all.
cvhc 2 hours ago
I can reproduce when downloading https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/download/2026.03.1.... But it did provide a line of explanation:
Dangerous download blocked yt-dlp_win_x86.zip is not commonly downloaded and may be dangerous. [Discard] [Keep]
alsetmusic 3 hours ago
Reminds me of how Bing search for Google takes people to a page meant to resemble Google.com. Can't trust huge companies.
But as others have pointed out, it's probably a coincidence in this case. But who knows.
ddtaylor 3 hours ago
"Never let a good tragedy go to waste"
socalgal2 an hour ago
This entire thread it almost entirely proof that HN is now reddit. No facts, no consideration, just accusation and crowd think
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
none of that here
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
not followed here
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
none of that there
> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Lots of that here
The system is clearly automated. As others have pointed out, they've been able to download without incident. As other have also pointed out, Firefox also warns. The warning is reasonable, claiming that something isn't downloaded often is true, until it isn't. A few more downloads and the warning will likely go away.
Nothing to see here except a Google hater mis-interpreting something and the posting ragebait.
whateverboat 42 minutes ago
You are wrong. There is at least one collaboration here that I can see. Download any other `.tar.gz`, Chrome says nothing. Do it with `yt-dlp`, chrome says it can harm your computer. Why?
Meekro 34 minutes ago
I tried to reproduce this on their download page for the latest release[1]. Only the windows exe gets the warning, the other releases (macos, linux, etc) all download just fine. That makes me think it's an automated system that messed up, not an attempt at anticompetitive behavior.
[1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2026.03.17
faangguyindia 3 hours ago
It's funny such a big corporations can't let such a small tool live.
Google is such an evil company, it is not even provided anything great anymore.
Anti-gravity paid plans suck, GCP is billing heavy. Today google sucks at most things
Their Android playstore hardly updates statistics once a day, so much for such a big data company with unlimited sources lol
matheusmoreira 4 hours ago
Which is why I download it from my Linux distribution's package manager. It's available on Termux too.
entropie an hour ago
Which in the case of yt-dlp might not be fast enough.
I use a telegram/mqtt/homeassistant wrapper (1) to let my mother download audiobooks which are saved in jellyfin so she can listen or download them from my (home)server.
Keeping yt-dlp up2date (and therefore) working is not that easy, especially since I dont systemupdate every other week. There were a few phases yt-dlp version in nixpkgs-unstable were just not working. I created a little wrapper that updates a venv so I always have the HEAD running for my bot.
throwaway85825 3 hours ago
Clear conflict of interest enabled by anti trust not being enforced.
fortran77 2 hours ago
Firefox gives a similar warning.
exe34 2 hours ago
it uses Google's shitlist
jacquesm an hour ago
ompogUe 4 hours ago
So, Google's browser says downloading a tool to download files from Google's servers is "Suspicious"? Not surprising.
schiffern 3 hours ago
By the same standard, Chrome itself is "a tool to download files from Google's servers." Chrome doesn't only download from Google's servers, but the same thing applies to yt-dlp.
I'm equally not "surprised" by their bad behavior, but that shouldn't stop us from condemning Google for unethically misleading people and engaging in browser monopoly abuse.
---
EDIT: holding up (hilariously) RIAA lawyers as ethical role models only proves my point, thanks.
Habgdnv 3 hours ago
Actually that is what they want you to believe. Behind the scenes, secretly Chrome is mostly "a tool to upload files to Google's servers" but because it does not require any actions from the user to do that, many people miss that part.
ddtaylor 3 hours ago
dryarzeg 3 hours ago
> Chrome itself is "a tool to download files from Google's servers."
...legitimately. While Google (I will reinforce: Google, not everyone) sees downloading of the videos and other content from the YouTube by third-party services as illegitimate because of YouTube's ToS. After all, they're making money from the YouTube Premium and "Download" option provided by it, so things like that are kinda expected to happen.
And no, I don't agree that it's right. While I can understand the position of Google, the method they (allegedly) used here... Well... I don't even know what to say. That's plainly wrong, in my opinion. After all, "download" is defined as "To transfer (data or a program) from a central computer or website to a peripheral computer or device." by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th Edition), so when you just watch videos, you download them already, don't you? What about watching them in browser, somewhere in embed on some website? Does that constitute a legitimate client (I guess so, because most of embeds still use YouTube Player after all)? That just makes me laugh : )
waffletower 3 hours ago
I am sure that RIAA lawyers would rofl at this yt-dlp labelling being an example of Google "... unethically misleading people and (committing) browser monopoly abuse". I want to live in that fantasy world with you though.
ddtaylor 3 hours ago
jesse23 3 hours ago
`brew install yt-dlp` or `scoop install yt-dlp` :)
mghackerlady an hour ago
I suspect for M$ users you could even use winget (though I am unable to subject myself to Windows right now)
bigyabai 3 hours ago
Yep. Never send a web browser to do a package manager's job.
ddtaylor 3 hours ago
Linux user here unaffected as I get it straight from my command line.
eis 4 hours ago
Which link exactly did you try to use? Or what specific version on the Github releases page? I checked both the latest windows and macos versions against Google Safe Browsing and all were fine.
owlninja 3 hours ago
I can't reproduce this either, OP is light on details.
NiloCK 3 hours ago
Interesting to inspect any telemetry on this. Could end up on a list.
nnevatie 3 hours ago
You wouldn't download a downloader.
uoaei an hour ago
Chrome and YouTube are both owned by Google. There's an obvious reason why they want to discourage use of that extension.
waffletower 3 hours ago
Chrome for work, Safari or Arc for everything else. I envy you if your use of yt-dlp is work related.
apparent an hour ago
Why use Chrome when there's Brave? I can't remember the last time I opened Chrome.
iririririr 3 hours ago
you almost got it rigth. safari and arc are as bad as chrome. arc is just stable-chrome (it will have the same nonsense with a custom ui next release)
firefox sadly is still what you should use.
LollipopYakuza 3 hours ago
I started giving a try to Zen (based on firefox) a few days ago. I like it especially while heavily relying on a tiling window manager.
johnthedebs 3 hours ago
jrajav 3 hours ago
jrajav 3 hours ago
Why is Safari as bad as Chrome?
bigyabai 3 hours ago
sleepybrett 3 hours ago
break this shit up, break all of this shit up.
Google needs to be at least what four companies.. gcp, youtube, search, workspaces...
Apple needs to be at least two hardware/os, music/tv+
Microsoft, meta, etc, Monopolies are bad and our SEC/FTC/Government is doing a poor job of controlling them. At least as equally trecherous are these businesses that overly vertically integrate... anyways, we're fucked.
rdevilla 4 hours ago
It's over. The internet culture of the 20th and early 21st century has been appropriated for profit.
thesuitonym 3 hours ago
No it's not, and no it hasn't. That old Internet is still there, you just stopped going to it.
josteink 4 hours ago
We built it on enthusiasm for enthusiasts and for that reason alone, it became something great.
Then they stole it all for profit.
Probably not the first time in history this has happened.
izzydata 3 hours ago
The amounts of times someone invented something that was important to them and then never make any money from it only for some other entity to make tons of money from it is way too high.
recursive 3 hours ago
And hopefully not the last