Google Safe Browsing

Raised as a usability problem by 17 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 12 threads.

People raised many different problems with Google Safe Browsing, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 18 complaints

Warning dialog is very annoying and most people don't know how to bypass it2026-02-25
Took hours to learn which subdomain was flagged, requiring Search Console signup2025-12-13
Results flip between flagged and "No available data" on reload, leaving it unclear2023-11-01
No way to reach a person at Google; the form gets no follow-up2023-05-19
Override buttons hidden and disable toggles buried deep in advanced settings2023-04-03
Cannot continue past warning on Android, and safe browsing settings reset on restart2023-04-02
Disabling Safe Browsing is hidden behind dark patterns2023-04-02
Review request took 48 hours to take effect and Google is hard to reach2022-11-29
Developer couldn't reproduce Safe Browsing warnings to test, despite 35 minutes of trying2021-03-10
No support contact; false warnings persist and appraisal takes days to weeks2021-01-17
Users would get confused and annoyed by a pop-up asking them to choose a provider2021-01-17
Partial downranking is hard to detect, taking months to discover the problem2021-01-16
No API or support contact to manage false malicious-site reports2021-01-16
Must manage reports manually through a clumsy UI with no programmatic option2019-12-29
Contacting a human about false positives is nearly impossible; status and reasons are unclear2016-08-01
Unblocking takes ages; Google won't say which ad caused the block2016-06-14
Site owners get no notification and must register with Google to learn why2013-10-24
Webmasters get minimal information on the problem and no notification of blacklisting2013-10-24