I'm really stressed out. I built a simple personal website featuring my name, some links, and a short bio. It's a one-page site created using Astro and hosted on Cloudflare Pages, and I just registered the domain two weeks ago. There's no JavaScript beyond what's required by Astro, no forms, no ads, and no trackers—literally nothing that should raise suspicion.
Recently, a friend of mine using Comcast tried to visit my site and was met with a full-page warning from Safebrowse, saying "This site may compromise your device." This is just a portfolio page! I conducted a scan on VirusTotal, and it came clean on 89 out of 90 engines. There was one scanner I hadn't heard of marking it as "suspicious," which seems to be enough to get it blocked for Comcast users.
I submitted an appeal through the appropriate channel over 11 days ago and haven't received a single update. I even tried calling for help, but after 40 minutes of hold time, I was transferred to the billing department—what a waste!
I filed false positive reports with the upstream scanner too, but I haven't heard back. The worst part is the lack of transparency; Safebrowse doesn't provide a lookup tool, so I can't see if my site is flagged or know which engine triggered the block. I just found out when my analytics dropped and people began informing me that they couldn't access it.
I've seen others on forums with similar issues but most of them say they either remain blocked or just give up. Has anyone successfully resolved a block from Safebrowse? I'm hoping there are better options than just waiting. My domain is new, so I guess that's a factor, but why are fresh domains treated like they're guilty from the get-go? I don't even have a contact form on it!
3 Answers
Honestly, I wouldn’t stress too much over it. Safebrowse does its own thing, and sometimes websites are mistakenly flagged. An example is found with a parody site called clownstrike.lol, which faced similar issues and was marked suspicious. Hang tight, the situation usually resolves over time as the site accumulates legitimate traffic.
You might be dealing with an ISP's DNS filter that's overly aggressive. It's frustrating, trust me—I've had my site flagged too. If your friend wants, they could try switching to a different DNS provider or use a service like Pi-hole to manage their DNS better. That way, they can avoid these unnecessary blocks.
Safebrowse can be a real pain, especially for new domains. Some ISPs automatically block them just because they're fresh and haven't built reputation yet. It could also relate to how your DNS is set up. Make sure your SSL settings with Cloudflare are correct—like they should be set to 'Full'. And keep an eye out for any stray `href="#"` links or placeholder text since those can sometimes trigger false positives.
That's solid advice! I had a similar issue with my site. Once I verified everything was clean, I started getting more visitors, and eventually the block lifted.
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely suggest that to my friend. It's just ridiculous how these filters work.