Tech giant Google has announced that it is upgrading its efforts towards fighting fake "Play" and "Download" buttons which usually redirect users to webpages that they are not interested in. This type of ads are usually found on file-sharing and video streaming websites.

Tech experts say this type of intrusive ads usually offer users get-rich-quick schemes and sometimes even malwares and other malicious types of software.

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Google's latest announcement is part of the company's "Safe Browsing" campaign which was launched in 2008 and was upgraded in November 2015..

Google announced the upgrade through a statement posted on its official security blog that reads, "You may have encountered social engineering in a deceptive download button, or an image ad that falsely claims your system is out of date. Today, we're expanding Safe Browsing protection to protect you from such deceptive embedded content, like social engineering ads."

Social engineering is the process of manipulating Internet users in such a way that they will share or give up some of their confidential information, most of the time in exchange for access to an exclusive content. The most often type of this scheme is persuading users to download and install software, that sometimes contain malware.

Users, who have activated Google Chrome's Safe Browsing feature, will receive a warning message cautioning them that they are being directed to a malicious or unsecured link.

Google hopes that by enforcing this strict security protocol, it can help lower down incidents of online identify theft and other Internet crimes that are perpetuated by malwares and other malicious software.

According to Torrent Freak, aside from pop-up ads, Google has also extended its Safe Browsing feature to flag website that offer peer-to-peer service, most notably torrents. In July 2015, Google branded torrent sites like KickassTorrents, ExtraTorent, Torrentz and RARBG as websites that contain "harmful programs."

TagsGoogle, Google Safe Browsing, Safe Browsing, Google fake ads, Fake ads