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Google Safe Browsing API Now Available to All Android App Developers

Google Safe Browsing API Now Available to All Android App Developers

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 16 September 2016 18:18 IST

Highlights

The API arrives with Google Play Services 9.4
It will allow developers to take advantage of the exhaustive database
It will help apps block unwanted sites from opening

Google's Safe Browsing initiative has been around for a long time now, and it has been broadening its database actively to keep malware and phishers at bay. Now, Google has announced that it is releasing an API as well for Android apps to take advantage of the long list of blacklisted websites too.

At I/O 2016, Google had announced that it would make a device-local Safe Browsing API available to all Android developers later in the year. And now, Google Play services v9.4 finally introduces the API which will enable developers to use the Safe Browsing infrastructure within their apps.

(Also see: Google Will Now Warn You About Websites With Misleading 'Download' Buttons)

Google Safe Browsing is a database used by Chrome, Firefox, and even Safari as a checklist for all malicious sites on the Internet vortex. It blocks websites that contain malware and conduct phishing activities. It came into existence in 2007, and has been actively updated ever since. The Safe Browsing database was first only available on desktop, but Google last year introduced it first in Android for Chrome users. Now, the API will allow all Android developers to take advantage.

(Also see: Google Study Reveals 760,935 Websites Were Breached Last Year)

"Since we introduced client-side Safe Browsing on Android, updated our documentation for Safe Browsing Protocol Version 4 (pver4), and also released our reference pver4 implementation in Go, we've been able to see how much protection this new technology provides to all our users. Since our initial launch we've shown hundreds of millions of warnings, actively warning many millions of mobile users about badness before they're exposed to it," the company said in its blog) post.

The API uses the latest version of Safe Browsing, and Google has detailed the procedure for developers to get the API here. A recent website that has been blacklisted is The Pirate Bay torrent site. Chrome and Firefox are popping warnings on the site claiming that 'it contains harmful programs'. Apparently, Safari users aren't seeing this warning, allowing its users to freely download potentially dangerous content from the website.

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