Google used to inform its users about the secretly installed programs that can change a browser's settings without the user's permission. Those revisions can unleash a siege of aggravating ads or redirect the browser's users to search engines or other sites that they didn't intend to visit. Google had already deployed the warning system to alert users of its Chrome browser that they were about to enter a site which distributes unwanted software. The Mountain View, California, company has recently began to feed these security information into a broader "safe browsing" application that also works in Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox browsers.

The safe browsing application had become so effective at flagging malware and phishing that are increasingly creating unwanted software in an attempt to hoodwink people, said Stephan Somogyi, Google's product manager of safe browsing. "The folks trying to make a buck off people have to come up with new stuff and that puts us in a position where we have to innovate to keep pace with these guys," Somogyi said in an interview. "You are now going to see a crescendo in our enforcement on sites that meet our standard of having unwanted software."

Whenever a potential threat is detected by the safe browsing system, it displays a red warning sign advising a user to stay away.

By Premji