Eliana Willis

Google/ZDNETWith all the hazards lurking online, your browser is your first line of defense against malicious websites and other threats. To try to keep you safe and secure, Google bakes into Chrome a feature known as Safe Browsing, which offers an Enhanced Protection level. In a blog post published Tuesday to mark Safer Internet Day, Google explains how Enhanced Protection works and why you should enable it in Chrome.Introduced in 2005, Google Safe Browsing looks out for malware, phishing scams, and other online threats that aim to attack you in real-time. Available on desktops and mobile devices (both Android and iOS), Safe Browsing works across Google products, including Chrome, Search, Gmail, and Google Ads. At Google’s Safe Browsing website, you can even enter the URL for a specific site or page to see if it’s been flagged as malicious or suspicious.Also: 5 browser extension rules to live by to keep your system safe in 2025To give you a choice, Safe Browsing offers two levels of protection — Standard Protection and Enhanced Protection.Standard Protection warns you about sites, downloads, and extensions already known to be malicious. This mode also alerts you if one of your accounts may have been compromised in a breach. More

ZDNETA while ago, I wrote a piece on the best way to ensure your privacy with a web browser. Part of that advice was to use the Tor browser. In simplest terms, you cannot get more privacy and security from a web browser than when using Tor. And given how important privacy and security are now, Tor should be on your radar.Also: How to turn on Private DNS Mode on Android – and why it’s a must for securityThe Tor browser uses the Onion network to ensure privacy and security. What is the Onion network? First off, Tor is short for “The Onion Router.” When using the Onion network, all traffic is encapsulated in layers of encryption, which are transmitted through a series of nodes called “onion routers.” As the traffic passes through a node, it peels away a single layer that reveals the next destination for the data. This makes it very difficult for a third party to trace your internet activity (more so than any other browser).Now that you know what Tor is, let me show you how easy it is to use.How to connect Tor to the Onion networkWhat you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need is Tor Browser installed on your desktop or mobile device. I’ll demonstrate Tor Browser on Linux, but the platform you use won’t matter. You can download the Tor Browser for your desktop from the official download page. The link for the Android version will take you to a page with downloads for .apk files. On that same page, you’ll find a link to the Google Play Store Tor entry. I suggest installing Tor on Android from the Google Play Store because sideloading .apk files can lead to security issues.Also: For anonymous browsing, these extensions are the next best thing to TorWhen using Linux, you can also install Tor from the standard repositories, which means it should be available to install from your desktop app store. For example, installing on an Ubuntu-based distribution is as simple as running the following command: sudo apt-get install torbrowser-launcher -yOnce you have Tor installed, proceed to step one. More