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How to prevent Firefox from sending downloaded file information to Google

By Martin Brinkmann on July 23, 2014 in Firefox - Last Update: July 23, 2014 17

Starting with Firefox 32, Mozilla will check file downloads against Google's application reputation database which is powering Chrome's Safe Browsing feature since 2012.

If you have read the release notes of Firefox 31, you may have noticed the entry "block malware from downloaded files" under What's New.

The integration of the feature in Firefox 31 is the first step in the implementation which will be completed when Firefox 32 is released to the public in six weeks.

In Firefox 31, a local list is used to determine whether a downloaded file is malicious or not. This downloaded list is updated regularly, ans whenever a download is being made, that download is checked against the list to make sure it is not malicious in nature.

From Firefox 32 on, downloads are checked against the local list and a remote list if the local list does not return a hit. This remote list is maintained by Google, and to access it, information about the download are submitted in the process.

While the file itself does not get transferred, its SHA-256 hash value as well as other information such as the suggested file name for the download, the length of the file in bytes and the url the file was downloaded from are.

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