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A few weeks after Google restricted direct access to the download pages of The Pirate Bay, its safe browsing program has once again flagged the download pages as a potential phishing threat. While the main page of the popular torrent host can be accessed, categories can be browsed and torrents can be searched, opening a torrent’s download page gives the following warning, which alerts the users to the possibility of identity theft.
This warning appears on safe browsing enabled browsers like Chrome and Firefox (the above warning is a screenshot from Firefox around 6.30 pm PKT on 6th October). According to TorrentFreak, The Pirate Bay team is aware of the fact that its pages are being flagged for phishing threats and is trying to get the issue resolved. It might be caused by third party advertisements.
Phishing (the threat highlighted here) refers to the theft of important user information, by tricking the user into believing he/she is entering it a valid location.
If users are confident in navigating the Pirate Bay pages despite the warning, it can be circumvented by ignoring the warning and “visiting the site at one’s own risk”. Also, the safe browsing option can be disabled entirely, though that is ill-advised as other potentially malicious websites will also be ignored.
The Pirate Bay is a popular website for torrent users, often cited for having a variety of content and high seed counts. However, it has been in trouble in the recent past due to copyright infringement issues.
Source: TorrentFreak
