Google releases mobile optimised Safe Browsing APIs

Google has updated its Safe Browsing APIs to include an emphasis on mobile devices as users move away from desktop and notebook computers. 

Safe Browsing contains a list of websites suspected to be harmful, with the goal of protecting users from phishing and malware. 

The search giant also contacts operators of compromised websites with information on how to secure their systems. 

The security feature is used in the Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari web browsers. Google said Safe Browsing now protects more than 2 billion devices worldwide. 

With the new version 4, app and browser developers can take advantage of optimisations for mobile devices.  

It is now possible to define geographic location, platform type and data caps in Safe Browsing version 4 clients.

However, there is no need for developers to create version 4-specific clients for the Android mobile operating system, Google said. 

"Please don’t implement your own version 4 client on Android: we’re working on making a simple, device-local API available to prevent any resource waste on device," Emily Schechter and Alex Wozniak of Google's Safe Browsing team wrote. 

Google did not specify when it intends to release device-local Android Safe Browsing APIs, saying they would be available as soon as possible. 

Developers can use a simple look-up API that sends URLs for sites directly to Safe Browsing servers to check if they have been reported as being harmful. 

The URLs are not encrypted and there is no set amount of time for how long the look-ups can take on the Safe Browsing servers, so Google also provides a more complex Update API. 

The Update API is used on the Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers and lets developers create a local database to store Safe Browsing data for URL checks against an encrypted list that is downloaded to devices.

The Update API requires further effort from developers, but is more secure to use: any URLs passed to Safe Browsing servers are hashed, and look-ups for links are much faster since they're done locally.

Safe Browsing version 4 debuted quietly in Chrome version 46 in December last year and replaces the currently active versions 2 and 3, which are now deprecated. Google is asking developers to stop using the older versions of the Safe Browsing API before next year.