Google's Chrome cloaks Pirate Bay in red screen of malware death

Scam ads abound

Google is warning users to stay away from infamous unauthorised content distribution site The Pirate Bay, as it says the torrent attic is bad for PC health.

Mountain View has generally shied away from flagging the torrent site as a malicious entity, other than a handful of times when it was caught serving malware through its rotation of sometimes-dodgy advertisements.

"Attackers on this site might try to trick you to download software or steal your information, for example passwords, messages, or credit card information," Google warns in its Safe Browsing checks.

Visitors to the site on Chrome could face Google's red screen of malware death, requiring them to bypass a warning to reach The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Bay hosts a variety of ordinary and unscrupulous advertisements. Many link to scam sites regarding investments and fake infections on users' devices.

The latter is typified by the recent wave of irritating Android infection pages that nab the agent device type to throw fake banners claiming handsets are infected, often coupled with triggers that make phones vibrate.

Google flagged the site as malicious last month under its Safe Browsing initiative.

The tech giant has not flagged chief Pirate Bay rival Extra Torrent, which sports seemingly benign dating and VPN anonymity advertisements. ®