Google enables Safe Browsing support by default in Chrome for Android

“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.

Users of Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox on the desktop will likely be familiar with red box warnings when they’ve stumbled on a potentially malicious site.

Chrome web browser users on Android have some extra protection now from malware and other security issues.

The feature was rolled out a long time ago as part of Play Services 8.1 and Chrome for Android 46, but was just officially announced today. Google uses Global Positioning System to keep its apps updated and enable Android services for developers. Prior to this, Safe Browsing was a feature that was included on Chrome for Android awhile ago. Network bandwidth and battery are the scarcest resources on a mobile device, so we had to carefully rethink how to best protect mobile users. Examples include some warnings targeting only areas of the world where known types of social engineering attacks occur.

One of the features of Google’s Chrome browser on the desktop is its safe browsing feature.

Because of the data concerns, Google says it will send warnings about the “riskiest sites” first, ensuring those in emerging markets and slower service regions still get the message. “We also worked with Google’s compression team to make the little data that we do send as small as possible”, they added. Simply head over to Settings / Privacy menu, and make sure Safe Browsing is ON. The security feature is also optimized from a memory and processor usage standpoint, making sure it does not reduce battery life.