About Safe Browsing
The Safe Browsing feature that's turned on when you select the 'Enable phishing and malware detection' option in Google Chrome is designed to protect your computer and your privacy, while conserving transmission bandwidth by sending very small amounts of data to and from your computer. When this feature is enabled in Google Chrome Options, Google downloads to your browser a list of information about sites that may contain malicious software or engage in phishing. The list doesn't include the full URL of each suspicious site. Instead, each URL is hashed (obscured so it can't be read) and then broken into portions. Only a portion of each hashed URL is included on the list on your browser.
As you browse the Web, your browser creates hashed versions of URLs that you visit, and checks them against the list. If a site that you visit appears to match a hashed URL fragment on the list, your browser will contact Google's servers to request the full list -- not just portions -- of the hashed URLs that are believed to be risky. Your computer can then determine if you are visiting a risky site, and warn you about it. When your computer contacts Google to get more information about a specific hashed URL fragment, or to update the list, we receive standard log information including your IP address and possibly a cookie. This information does not personally identify you, and is retained only for a period of weeks. Any information that we receive through this process is protected under the standard terms of the Google Privacy Policy.
Disabling the feature
The Safe Browsing feature is turned on by default. Follow these steps to turn this feature off:
- Click the wrench menu
. - Select Options.
- Click the Under the Hood tab and find the 'Privacy' section.
- Deselect the 'Enable phishing and malware protection' checkbox.
- Click Close.
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