Safer browsing on Android: how to activate the new function

There is a new page in the settings privacy and security of Android, called “Android Safe Browsing“, which allows you to see which apps are supported by this feature, and you can enable the live threat protection.

Safe Browsing is intended to warn the user in case of security threats, such as potentially fraudulent links and web pages, when you browse through the apps supported by the service. For example, you could receive a warning by clicking on a link on YouTube or another social network which would then send you to a phishing page.

Regard which We don’t yet know exactly whether these are apps, because the rollout of the function has just begun and none of them seem to be joining. This is probably an implementation of the SafetyNet Safe Browsing API, which is part of Google Play Services, which basically recognizes URLs that Google has already marked as dangerous.

To check if Android Safe Browsing has arrived for you too, go to settings -> security and privacy -> more security and privacy and you should find the relevant entry towards the middle of the page, under the heading security.

Be careful though: you need to have Play Protect enabled, which you can always do in safety and privacy, by voice app securityby clicking on the item of the same name.