[srazzaque]

I see your point, but comparing this with an off-line AV scanner with a regularly updated internal database (assuming that's what you meant) is not an apt comparison.

The analog would be an AV scanner that sends a list of your files/hashes to a centralised server somewhere, so that the company can target ads related to your file contents (or sell your data...), in addition to warning you about viruses.

Agreed that % true positive is not a factor in whether or not to have a given security feature. But it is merely convenient that the vast majority of the usage of this "link protection" feature would benefit Google/MS and not the customer/user (assuming that Google/MS are data mining, which is yet unproven in this use case).

[autoexec]

> The analog would be an AV scanner that sends a list of your files/hashes to a centralised server somewhere, so that the company can target ads related to your file contents (or sell your data...), in addition to warning you about viruses.

Is there an antivirus program that doesn't do this? I've been assuming for a very long time that windows defender does, Norton/McAfee/Avast too. I'd be shocked if they didn't

[freedomben]

I largely agree with you, but GP didn't specify they are talking about an off-line AV scanner. In fact Google itself has an online AV scanner that scans attachments in gmail, files downloaded in Drive, etc.