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Safer Internet Day 2016: Google pays tribute by offering free additional storage, TLS e-mail encryption, android apps scan, botnet defenses; Facebook acts too!

| Feb 11, 2016 12:13 AM EST

Safer Internet Day (SID) is organised by Insafe in February of each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially among children and young people across the world.

Google is giving out more storage on Google Drive for free in celebration of the Safer Internet Day. Google will give additional maximum storage of up to 2GB with only a few easy steps.

Google Drive users can get the additional storage by completing the Google security checkup which takes two to three minutes to comply, The Verge reported. After which, the additional 2GB will be received.

The free additional storage can only be redeemed until Feb. 11, Thursday. However, the additional storage is not applicable to Google applications for education and work profiles.

Also, Google is developing Google mail through marking emails from senders that are not authenticated by transport layer security encryption. TLS encryption protects and secures emails that are not yet authenticated. When the emails are TLS encrypted, the privacy of the email remains private and is not exposed to any third parties, especially when on transit.

Since not all email providers have TLS encryption, Google mail will have this new feature on every email. Next to a user's email address is a question mark of the face logo with a broken lock icon on emails that are not yet encrypted. Added security feature in mails is one of the many things that Google mail is constantly developing, Engadget reported. 

Aside from the additional storage and TLS encryption, Google is also offering other treats to pay tribute to the annual celebration. They are into continuous 200 million security scans daily to check for apps that can possibly steal and phish Android users' personal information.

Reinforcing existing defenses to get rid of botnets from Google's ads systems is also in the list of treats. This is performed by filtering traffic automatically from the most popular fraud botnets, which has infected 500, 000 user machines in the past. Together with Medium, an online platform, Google is also hosting virtual roundtable to tackle online security issues.

Safer Internet Day is a celebration that happens on the second week of February every year. It aims to promote safer internet usage, ensure friendly cyberspace community and encourage the younger population to become responsible online users.

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