Google has now updated their SafeBrowsing service to protect users from malicious content and viruses. As per the new update, Google Chrome users will now receive a warning before entering a website which may contain harmful malwares and viruses or which can download such software into the user’s browser.
Lucas Ballard, Software Engineer at Google announced this new update via Google’s Official Online Security Blog, as he shared three crucial updates:
- Chrome users will see a warning before they click a website affected by virus
- Google Search will incorporate these warnings, and the users would be notified right at the Google Search result pages
- Google Adsense will now stop showing advertisements in these virus affected websites
The new warning message which will be displayed from now on:
Webmasters are encouraged to check the warnings received via Google Webmasters Tool, and to verify the SafeBrowsing status of their websites via Google’s diagnostic tool: For example, to test trak.in, you can do www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=https://trak.in(replace trak.in with your own website address)
Once the test is conducted, Google will clearly let user know the details of whether a site was infected or had malicious software on the site in last 90 days!
What is Google SafeBrowsing?
Google SafeBrowsing is a service initiated by Google since 2008, wherein all websites which have malicious content, virus and malware are included in a list, which is used by all browsers to warn their users against clicking these websites. Besides Chrome, Apple’s Safari, Firefox Mozilla, Opera also use this list of URLs and safeguard their users.
In 2014, SafeBrowsing updated their offerings by warning users before a harmful software gets downloaded in their system or when they were about to open a website which may download illegal and unsafe software through the browsers, through this message:
Infact, Google provides an opensource API to access the list of URLs under Google SafeBrowsing, which can be used by software developers and website browsers to check the safety and integrity of all websites.
Google has published a comprehensive whitepaper on the subject of user’s privacy protection and the steps initiated to protect it.
Indian Government & Google Will Fight Cyber Criminals
In a related news, Indian Government officials announced last week, that they would be working with Google to fight cyber criminals and to make Internet a safe place for all users.
MyGov CEO Gaurav Dwivedi said, “We are happy to partner with Google and Cert-In in the cyber-security education and awareness campaign. The Internet offers many opportunities to explore create and collaborate,”
Google with aid from MyGov department will initiate workshops, educational programs, campaigns and courses which will create awareness about Internet safety hazards, viruses, malwares and will educate on how to fight against these menaces.
Google’s Head Public Policy India Chetan Krishnaswamy said, “To enable this and ensure that families and young people across India are safe, we’re working with CERT- In and MyGov to get the word out about good Internet practices and how to keep users safe online,”
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