Microsoft Ports Edge Anti-Phishing Technology To Google Chrome (bleepingcomputer.com) 75
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has released a Chrome extension named "Windows Defender Browser Protection" that ports Windows Defender's -- and inherently Edge's -- anti-phishing technology to Google Chrome. The extension works by showing bright red-colored pages whenever users are tricked into accessing malicious links. The warnings are eerily similar to the ones that Chrome natively shows via the Safe Browsing API, but are powered by Microsoft's database of malicious links —also known as the SmartScreen API.
Chrome users should be genuinely happy that they can now use both APIs for detecting phishing and malware-hosting URLs. The SmartScreen API isn't as known as Google's more famous Safe Browsing API, but works in the same way, and possibly even better. An NSS Labs benchmark revealed that Edge (with its SmartScreen API) caught 99 percent of all phishing URLs thrown at it during a test last year, while Chrome only detected 87 percent of the malicious links users accessed.
Chrome users should be genuinely happy that they can now use both APIs for detecting phishing and malware-hosting URLs. The SmartScreen API isn't as known as Google's more famous Safe Browsing API, but works in the same way, and possibly even better. An NSS Labs benchmark revealed that Edge (with its SmartScreen API) caught 99 percent of all phishing URLs thrown at it during a test last year, while Chrome only detected 87 percent of the malicious links users accessed.
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For Andorians, blue means danger.
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Windows Defender for macOS? (Score:1)
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If you don't feel as if the Meltdown patches slowed your Mac down enough, this provides you with an additional tool.
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What does your choice of OS have to do with phishing links?
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Re:Data suckage++ (Score:5, Insightful)
Really. How does Windows telemetry get my data when I'm running Ubuntu?
Yeah, that's the point of making a Chrome extension - to penetrate the non-Windows market for data harvesting. Just waiting for someone to scope the packets that get phoned home to Microsoft when this is installed.
Does it track me? (Score:2)
Though I commend their effort to improve Chrome's phishing protection, this may also be used to track users' browsing habits and show better "interest-based ads," as vaguely hinted at in the extension's privacy policy.
Thanks but no thanks.
This is just a portal, not a port. (Score:2)
Calling this a “port” of Windows Defender's “anti-phishing technology” is an extreme exaggeration, I suspect. Weighing in at only 295KiB total, this Chrome extension is apparently little more than a keyhole portal interface from the Chrome browser to the underling Windows Defender installed on your system platform.
So for those not running Chrome atop Windoze (like on Linux or MacOS or such), I suspect this Chrome Extension is merely a 295KiB no-op / placebo / bloatware.
I imagin
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Youi realize that Google's anti-phishing thing works exactly the same way too? Except instead of Seattle, WA, it consults Mountain View, CA?
Ostensibly, Google actually has more
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Starbucks, which (as every good conspiracy theorist knows) is merely a front for the NSA domestic surveillance complex.
Why else do you think they charge so much for cheap, plentiful coffee beans? It's to fund their nefarious, clandestine InterWebz hoovering, universal phone sweeping, bogus cell phone tower intercepts, public-space closed circuit camera dragnets, traffic camera espionage networks, GPS & spy satellite deployments, and so on. Even their free WiFi inside Starbucks lounges are nothing m
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You realize that Google's anti-phishing thing works exactly the same way too? Except instead of Seattle, WA, it consults Mountain View, CA?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Unless I'm mistaken, both are proprietary services, the underlying software & algorithms of which are likely trade secrets.
Can anyone recommend good whitepaper summaries of both/either? (I'll conduct an on-line search in my copious spare time, but an expert recommendation may save me some trouble.)
BTW, I never meant to imply that the tin-foil hat brigade is rational: just reactionary. Color them “triggered”. ;-)
Ostensibly, Google actually has more information, since basically all the major browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Safari) all use Google's API, whereas now, Microsoft only got Edge and now optionally Chrome.
True.
Moreover, for those of us sucka chumps who s
Chrome users should be genuinely happy (Score:4, Insightful)
Chrome users should be genuinely happy that they can now use both
LMFAO, so preemptively defensive.
An NSS Labs benchmark revealed that Edge (with its SmartScreen API) caught 99 percent of all phishing URLs thrown at it during a test last year, while Chrome only detected 87 percent of the malicious links users accessed.
You will have to forgive me if I consider this a worthless statistic... you know microsoft have a history if "beating everyone else" in their own hand crafted benchmarks only to be utter shit in reality (especially when talking about browsers).
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No, they're not, and that's an interesting way that allows results to be misrepresented. Suppose both Edge and Chrome are tested on a set of malicious web pages, and suppose the results are 100% identical. (Unlikely, I know, but just suppose.) The malicious web pages may include phishing pages, pages which exploit browser bugs to silently install malware, and other kinds, so the claim that Edge catches 99% of phishing URLs and Chrome detects 87%
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As usual someone has completely missed the point while frothing at the mouth against the headline.
This has NOTHING to do with Chrome. This has everything to do with Symantec, McAfee, and others, and is MS trying to prove their Windows Defender product is better than the alternatives and more feature rich.
And to be honest I struggle to disagree. I think in terms of the overall package (security and performance) users should pick:
1. Windows Defender
2. Absolutely no Antivirus
3. No internet connection or USB po
Malicious links? (Score:1)
The extension works by showing bright red-colored pages whenever users are tricked into accessing malicious links
Happens all the time for me. Google some Excel problem, find a link that sounds like the right thing, and even points to a microsoft.com domain...
Click it, and end up with an ad for Surface, Windows 10 or Edge.
But I really don't think the add-on would catch even a single one of them.