When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Heres how it works.
Googleis upgradingChromesSafe Browsing security tool by allowing it to provide constant protection against suspicious websites in real-time.
Before going into the update itself, its worth covering the backstory.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Safe Browsing givesthe Chrome browsera list of thousands of well-known, unsafe websites on the internet.
Whenever you visit a webpage, the software will check to see if its on the list.
However, the bad actors behind these malicious websites have adapted to the changing landscape.
Because the list refreshes every 30 minutes or so, there is a blind spot within this time frame.
Bad actors are exploiting the blind spot and slipping through Chromes defenses.
Its a small window of opportunity, but its enough to do a lot of damage.
The solution here, as mentioned earlier, is to provide real-time protection.
The way the new default will work is a little complicated, so heres a quick breakdown.
Lets say you visit a website not on Chromes list.
The server then analyzes the data and matches what it finds against its own database.
If anything weird is found, Chrome is alerted and will warn you to stay away.
Of course, theres more to it than that.
We didnt go over exactly how the surfing app breaks down the URL.
If you want more details, we recommend checking out the blog post andGoogles URL hashing guidance page.
Activating the enhanced Safe Browsing does require more information than normal.
But it’s important to note that neither Google nor Fastly will receive any user identifiers.
IP addresses will not be collected.
And because Fastly runs the server independently, Google has no access to the data.
That’s coming later on in the month.
Because it’ll be the default, you don’t have to manually activate it.
To obtain the tool, start by clicking the three dots in the upper right corner.
Go to Help, then select About Google Chrome.
The installation will begin automatically.
Relaunch the web app once prompted.
Expand Safe Browsing and you should see Safe Browsing’s standard mode with the updated text.
It’s just an example of what you might see.
It’s unknown what kind of extra information Google will ask from its users.
We reached out to Google for more details.
This story will be updated at a later time.
