Chrome users on the developer channel or Canary will see download warnings if they try to download a file on a website that matches the list of malicious websites published by Google’s Safe Browsing Api. The warning reads “This file appears to be malicious. Are you sure you want to continue” with options to discard and save. The options may cause quite the confusion among users, and it would probably have been better if Google would have simply added Yes and No buttons to the prompt
Another thing to remember is that all downloads of said websites will be flagged, regardless whether they are indeed malicious or dangerous in nature, or not. All downloads? Well that is not entirely right, at least not for now. Google flags all Windows executable downloads as suspicious if the site is on the Safe Browsing list. No warning is currently displayed for other files. These files are not actually scanned by Google, keep that in mind if the warning message pops up.
Safe Browsing is used by Google Search, and various web browsers to warn users when they visit web pages or sites that have been flagged.
Safe Browsing has done a lot of good for the web, yet the Internet remains rife with deceptive and harmful content. It’s easy to find sites hosting free downloads that promise one thing but actually behave quite differently. These downloads may even perform actions without the user’s consent, such as displaying spam ads, performing click fraud, or stealing other users’ passwords. Such sites usually don’t attempt to exploit vulnerabilities on the user’s computer system. Instead, they use social engineering to entice users to download and run the malicious content.
The feature has already been implemented into Google Chrome dev and Canary, and Google plans to release it at a later time for the beta and stable branches as well. It is not clear yet if Linux and Mac users will see the warning messages as well, chance is they will. (via)
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For me it’s just a new step towards censorship. I don’t need my browser to tell me what’s good for me. I still have my brain and my security software for that.
I don’t really follow your reasoning that it’s censorship if your browser software tells you not to download something, but it’s not censorship if your security software tells you not to download it. It’s not like the browser is rejecting it based on the content of some message; it’s just doing a rule-based selection in the same manner that most security software does. Certainly it sounds like it’s not making very good decisions, but it’s hardly an issue of whether it’s censorship or not.