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Comment by glass- | Hacker News Reader

> Getting a list from EasyList is just as much a leak as getting a list from Google. Someone has your IP either way.

The problem with SafeBrowsing isn't downloading the list, it's that it sends data back to Google if it finds a match. Malware lists with AdBlock plugins don't do this.

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My understanding was that Google's malware list is a two prong approach:

  1: An all-in-one lump download of blacklists
  2: Optionally, "Enhanced" also sends hashed URLs to Google in case specific sub-pages aren't on the list, etc

Easylist, of course, only offers #1. Firefox, by default, uses both, which is less private, but seemingly still configurable to use only #1.

Citations:

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/safebrowsing/faq.html

https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/firefox3_privacy...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=124878.0

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