Google Safe Browsing updates: more balance between security and loading times on Chrome

Google Safe Browsing is a Google service that warns users when they are accessing a dangerous web page or when they are about to download a risky file. Now, the company is updating this feature to make it less disruptive and more efficient. Specifically, Chrome 122, which will launch starting next week, introduces a “asynchronous mechanism that will allow sites to load even while real-time checks are underway with safe browsing servers”thus reducing the overall page load time.

In terms of preventing phishing and social engineering attacks, Google highlights that it is “extremely unlikely that a user will have meaningfully interacted with such a site by the time a warning is shown.” Among other things, this approach will allow the Mountain View giant to “experiment with and implement new algorithms based on AI and ML to detect and block more phishing and social engineering attacks”.

Furthermore, unlike what happened in the past, Google Safe Browsing will no longer check sub-resource URLs. Google, in fact, has security measures in place, including a “Client-side visual ML model that will be able to identify images used to create phishing pages.” Finally, the company reduced how often Chrome “contacted” Safe Browsing in order to control it PDF downloads as the file format is no longer widely used.