14 DAY TRIAL // Google announced about two years ago that its Safe Browsing service is protecting more than 1 billion people across multiple browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but also various ISPs.
Today, the search giant has announced that it's bringing Safe Browsing to Chrome for Android users, which will be protected by default from malware or phishing content.
“If you’re an Android user, you probably already have it! This new Safe Browsing client on Android is part of Google Play Services, starting with version 8.1. The first app to use it is Chrome, starting with version 46—we’re now protecting all Android Chrome users by default,” explains Google in a blog post.
If you already use Chrome on your Android device, then you can now check and see whether or not Safe Browsing is now enabled. Simply head over to Settings / Privacy menu, and make sure Safe Browsing is ON.
Once enabled, Safe Browsing will warn you about dangerous websites, while maintaining your privacy, just like on desktop, Google states.
Small, but meaningful updates
This is not the only application protected with Safe Browsing, as Google implemented the service on the Android platform and Play store long ago.
According to Google, it's much harder to provide this kind of protection on mobile devices than on a desktop system because the company needs to make sure the list of dangerous websites doesn't get stale.
If you're afraid that Safe Browsing will eat from your data allowance, then Google says you shouldn't, as the company plans to send information about the riskiest sites first if they can only get a very short update through due to lower-speed networks.
Also, thanks to the new compression technology, the little data that Google is sending to your Android device includes all the necessary information.
Last but not least, Google also promises that Safe Browsing won't be extra stingy with memory and processor use, and very careful with data traffic.