When you visit dangerous websites on your computer or phone through Chrome, Google’s Safe Browsing attempts to detect them and warn you before letting you proceed and jump “back to safety.” Google says that they look at more than 10 billion URLs (and files) every day, where they warn 3 million users about potential threats. Those are big numbers, for sure, but that experience is about to get an upgrade that may even find more bad actors.
In a blog post today, Google announced that the Standard protection (which is the default mode) for Safe Browsing can now check sites or files in real-time through a server-side list of Google’s. Previously, your devices would hold a stored list on-device that Google was refreshing every 30-60 minutes before checking. By checking in real-time, as bad sites are created quickly, Google believes they can block 25% more phishing attempts.
This new capability should be rolling out in Chrome on desktop and iOS right away. For Android, users should get it “later this month.”
Worried about privacy as it relates to server-side checks of websites, because that could mean Google is tracking the sites you visit? Google says that their new server-side checks use “encryption and other privacy-enhancing techniques to ensure that no one, including Google, knows what website you’re visiting.” Let’s hope that is true.
Worried about the extra processing power required to do all of this new server-side, encrypted checking potentially slowing down your Chrome experience? Google also says that they’ve kept everything “smooth and speedy.”
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