I’ll walk you through the downsides, too, including Google knowing more about your web activity. That’s why Google isn’t turning on these extra security measures without your permission.
But if you just want basic advice, turn on Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing at this link and carry on.
Billions of people use Chrome and Gmail. When Google boosts the security measures for those users, it ripples through the entire internet.
What is Google’s ‘Enhanced Safe Browsing?’
Scammers constantly try to trick you with emails that claim to be from your human resources department or your bank with an important digital document.
And then, ugh, the link or document is a tripwire for criminals to collect your secret passwords, steal your money, hijack your computer or assemble data they use against you later.
These phishing scams are among the most common internet crimes.
Google says that if you turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing that’s available for Chrome and Gmail, the company takes extra steps to warn you when you roam onto suspected scammer sites.
(You might see a message at the top of your Gmail to turn on the Enhanced Safe Browsing mode. If you don’t see it, click this link.)
With this safe browsing mode, Google monitors the web addresses of sites that you visit and compares them to constantly updated Google databases of suspected scam sites.
You’ll see a red warning screen if Google believes you’re on a website that is, for example, impersonating your bank.
You can also check when you’re downloading a file to see if Google believes it might be a scam document.
In the normal mode without Enhanced Safe Browsing, Google still does many of those same security checks. But the company might miss some of the rapid-fire activity of crooks who can create a fresh bogus website minutes after another one is blocked as a scam.
This enhanced security feature has been around for three years, but Google recently started putting a message in Gmail inboxes suggesting that people turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing.
Security experts told me that it’s a good idea to turn on this safety feature but that it comes with trade-offs.
The downsides of Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing
The company already knows plenty about you, particularly when you’re logged into Gmail, YouTube, Chrome or other Google services.
If you turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing, Google may know even more about what sites you’re visiting even if you’re not signed into a Google account. It also collects bits of visual images from sites you’re visiting to scan for hallmarks of scam sites.
Google said it will only use this information to stop bad guys and train its computers to improve security for you and everyone else.
You should make the call whether you are willing to give up some of your privacy for extra security protections from common crimes.
“It is a trade-off, and I would choose to trust Google in exchange for saving me from criminals,” said Jim Downey, whose job title is cybersecurity evangelist at the digital security firm F5 Inc.
Why wouldn’t Google just give you extra security protections automatically?
The company told me that because Google is collecting more data in Enhanced Safe Browsing mode, it wants to ask your permission.
Read more: Here are warning signs of an online scam
Other steps to boost your online security
Your best protections against phishing and other digital crimes are dull steps repeated over and over.
First, be suspicious of web links. Try not to click on links in email, texts or social media without considering whether they might be a trick.
I hate that we have to treat everything as a potential nuclear bomb of cybercrime. But we do.
Keep your web browser up-to-date, too. (In Chrome, click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner. The menu will blare at you if you need to update the browser software.)
Also try not to reuse passwords on your online accounts. When crooks steal a bunch of passwords from one place, they program computers to check whether those same passwords let them glide into your other accounts, too.
Another smart protection is to turn on two-factor authentication for your important online accounts. That means you may need to enter a special numerical code or tap a phone alert in addition to entering your password.
No single security measure is foolproof, but two-factor authentication is one of the best digital security measures you can take.
Bigger picture: This is why tech dictatorships are good
Google and a handful of other tech giants have enormous power over our technology. There are lots of problems with this, but we benefit from digital dictators, too.
When Google steps up security measures on services with billions of users, crooks have a harder time.
It’s also not your fault that phishing scams are everywhere. Our whole online security system is unsafe and stupid.
Protecting ourselves from crooks requires each of us to create complicated passwords on potentially hundreds of digital accounts, and then never make a mistake by clicking on a phony email.
Our goal should be to slowly replace the broken online security system with newer technologies that ditch our crime-prone password system for different methods of verifying we are who we say we are.
The Washington Post’s Zoe Glasser wrote about a common trick that shows bogus phone numbers when you search Google for airline customer service hotlines.
If you dial those bogus numbers, a scammer might trick you into handing over your credit card number or other personal information.
Crooks constantly figure out ways to replace official business phone numbers that pop up prominently in Google search results and Google Maps. It’s exhausting.
Your best defense is not to rely on any phone number that you see pop up at the top of Google search results or in Google Maps.
Instead, go directly to the website for your airline or your ticket confirmation email and look there for a phone number you might need. (It would help if airlines didn’t bury their contact information deep in their websites.)
Yes, this is aggravating. But again, scams are relentless.
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