[tantalor]

You should remove the unwarranted "nefarious" slam. It's simply incorrect; the actual reason the browser does not send the URL to a central service is user's expectations of privacy do not allow their browsing history to be logged like that, even if the purpose is for malware protection. They have not given proper informed consent, and fortunately don't need to in order to detect malware.

From "Google Chrome Privacy Whitepaper":

Chrome checks the URL of each site you visit or file you download against this local list. If you navigate to a URL that appears on the list, Chrome sends a partial URL fingerprint (the first 32 bits of a SHA-256 hash of the URL) to Google for verification that the URL is indeed dangerous. Chrome also sends a partial URL fingerprint when a site requests a potentially dangerous permission, so that Google can protect you if the site is malicious. Google cannot determine the actual URL from this information.

https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#malwar...

(I work for Google but not on anything like this.)

[gopiandcode]

Good point, my inclusion of Google was mostly in jest, but in hindsight, it come off as misleading, as actual browsers don't actually function in the simplified way presented in the article. I will remove the reference to Google.