Posted by Moheeb Abu Rajab and Stephan Somogyi, Google Safe Browsing Team
Last year, we announced our increased focus on unwanted software (UwS), and published our unwanted software policy. This work is the direct result of our users falling prey to UwS, and how badly it was affecting their browsing experience. Since then, Google Safe Browsing’s ability to detect deceptive software has steadily improved.
In the coming weeks, these detection improvements will become more noticeable in Chrome: users will see more warnings (like the one below) about unwanted software than ever before.
We want to be really clear that Google Safe Browsing’s mandate remains unchanged: we’re exclusively focused on protecting users from malware, phishing, unwanted software, and similar harm. You won’t see Safe Browsing warnings for any other reasons.
Unwanted software is being distributed on web sites via a variety of sources, including ad injectors as well as ad networks lacking strict quality guidelines. In many cases, Safe Browsing within your browser is your last line of defense.
Google Safe Browsing has protected users from phishing and malware since 2006, and from unwanted software since 2014. We provide this protection across browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) and across platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android). If you want to help us improve the defenses for everyone using a browser that integrates Safe Browsing, please consider checking the box that appears on all of our warning pages:
Safe Browsing’s focus is solely on protecting people and their data from badness. And nothing else.
