Defending 1 billion Chrome users with Enhanced Protection

Google Safe Browsing helps keep you safe while you surf the web by identifying phishing, malware, scams and other online threats in real time. Launched in 2005, it’s used by Chrome and many other popular browsers, Search, Android, Google Ads and Gmail to keep 5 billion devices safe and help you stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.

In 2020, we launched the Enhanced Protection mode of Safe Browsing in Chrome to better address the increasingly sophisticated threats people face online. And now, more than 1 billion Chrome users are using this mode, making them two times as safe from phishing and other scams when compared to Safe Browsing’s Standard Protection mode. Today, in honor of Safer Internet Day, here’s a look at how Enhanced Protection mode works to keep you out of danger online.

If you turn on Enhanced Protection, much of the additional protection you receive comes from advanced AI and machine learning models designed to spot dangerous URLs engaging in known phishing, social engineering and scam techniques. These models are trained to distinguish between real and malicious websites based on millions of real-world examples.

Safe Browsing’s Enhanced Protection models can identify URLs designed to look similar to trusted domains. Additionally, suspicious pages are compared to known attack patterns to identify potential risks. In the example above, these systems would warn you that the page is attempting to look like a trusted package delivery page on a URL or site not associated with the actual delivery company.

Enhanced Protection does more than just keep you safe as you browse sites. It also uses advanced AI and machine learning techniques to protect you from dangerous downloads. With Enhanced Protection enabled, Safe Browsing runs more than 300,000 deep scans of suspicious files against advanced scanners every month, helping to find new forms of malware that haven't been seen before. Enhanced Protection can even help protect you from new threats hidden in encrypted archives.

Enhanced Protection mode also protects your privacy. Your data, including URLs, page contents, files and more, is anonymized whenever possible. It’s used only for security purposes, and retained only as long as necessary.

Turning on Enhanced Protection doesn’t just improve security for you, but also for everyone on the web. Once it detects a page or download as malicious, that information can then protect all future users who visit those sites.

To better protect yourself — and others — from phishing, scams, social engineering and malware, enable Enhanced Protection on Chrome and on your Google Account.