Download Guard

Stop unwanted downloads before they land.

When a download begins on a site Haven has not verified, Haven pauses it and asks you to confirm. It is one question, not a malware scan and not a block, and it disappears the moment you answer.

How it works

How Haven pauses unwanted downloads

Haven stops the download before it reaches your computer and shows a short prompt naming the file and the site it came from. Answer once and the file either downloads or disappears.

Pauses, never blocks

You decide, not Haven. Choose Download anyway and the file arrives normally. Choose Don't download and nothing reaches your downloads folder.

Verified sites pass through

Downloads from verified banking and financial sites are never interrupted, including files served from their separate download domains.

Answer once, not every time

Say yes once and Haven stays quiet on that site for a couple of minutes. Switch the feature off entirely in settings whenever you like.

Why it matters

Drive-by downloads start without a click

A convincing page can start a download with no download button in sight. A fake update notice, a second window, a search result that was not what it claimed. Once the file is in your downloads folder it looks like every file you meant to save.

Download Guard moves the decision earlier. One tap on sites Haven has not verified, and nothing at all on the sites you use every day.

Worth saying plainly

Haven does not scan files for malware

Haven does not open your downloads, check them against a malware database, or judge whether a file is dangerous. It cannot know that, and saying otherwise would be worse than saying nothing.

What Haven knows is where a file came from. Most download trouble is not exotic malware. It is a file that started on its own, from a page you did not mean to open.

A pause catches that. A scanner usually does not.

Answers to Your Questions

Get answers to commonly asked questions about Download Guard.

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No. Haven does not scan downloads for viruses or malware. Haven does not inspect file contents and does not check files against a malware database. Instead, Haven pauses downloads that begin on sites it has not verified and asks you to confirm before the file is saved. Haven is not a replacement for antivirus software and works alongside whatever you already use.
A drive-by download is a file that starts downloading without you clicking a download button, triggered automatically by the web page you are on. Drive-by downloads commonly arrive through fake update notices, pop-up windows, and pages reached from misleading search results. Haven pauses downloads like these when they begin on a site it has not verified, so the file is not saved until you confirm it.
No. Haven only pauses downloads that start on sites it has not verified. Downloads from sites on Haven's verified list pass through without a prompt, along with hundreds of widely used domains people download from every day. During normal browsing most people see this prompt rarely.
Nothing is saved to your computer while a download is paused. Haven stops the download and clears it immediately. If you choose to continue, Haven starts the download again from the beginning. If you choose Don't download, the file is never written to your downloads folder.
The setting is called "Pause downloads from unverified sites" in Haven's settings, and can be switched off at any time. Turning it off stops the confirmation prompts and leaves Haven's other protections, including link analysis and verified site checks, running as normal.
No. Download Guard runs in the Haven browser extension and covers downloads that begin in the browser. Files downloaded through other applications on your computer are not covered.
Yes. Download Guard is included with Haven, which is free for individual use. There is no separate charge for it and no trial period.