Google understands the pain of innocent, unsuspecting users who visit sites that seem fairly safe and innocent in search of a file but who end up clicking on a link that seems legitimate but redirects them to a completely different site that often turns out to be malware. At any rate, something gets downloaded on the users’ PC that is definitely not the file they were looking for, whether it was malicious or not. It is a very annoying experience, and now Google has declared a war against fake download buttons.
Safe Browsing to fight malware
Google is tweaking its Safe Browsing feature in Chrome to warn users about sites using deceptive content, including buttons leading to unwanted content or prompts that ask users to click on them.
In a blog post, Google said, “Consistent with the social engineering policy we announced in November, embedded content (like ads) on a web page will be considered social engineering when they either: pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity — like your own device or browser, or the website itself. [Or] try to trick you into doing something you’d only do for a trusted entity — like sharing a password or calling tech support,”
Now Chrome will flag the websites that consistently use these irritating practices. This means that when a user try to access an affected website, Chrome will throw up a huge red warning page that will prevent them from entering the affected website unless they agree that they are absolutely comfortable doing so.
A much-needed move from Google
Safe Browsing is available for Google’s Chrome browser and Android, and it displays a warning screen to notify users when they are about to visit a site that is potentially harmful for their PCs or for them. Also Google used a “safe browsing” application to share security information. This application works with Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari with an aim of eliminating harmful browser software.
Along with users, the Internet firm will also inform Web page owners of malicious content found on their pages. Also if visitors continuously face such problems with a website, Google will flag the full website, after which owners will have to ensure that everything is safe.
Such a move was needed as the web is full of useful information but at the same time, it is full of traps and tricky websites that con unsuspecting users.
