Microsoft Edge Is Testing A New Scareware Scam Blocker, How To Enable It

The scareware blocker works alongside Defender SmartScreen, which protects users by performing “real-time checks” on newly established websites. It uses a machine learning model that runs locally on a user’s computer and compares full screen web pages against known scams. If there’s a match, a user will see a warning screen and be given the option to continue or close the page. Microsoft is clear that this is all done locally, and that nothing will be sent or stored in the cloud while scareware blocker runs.
Microsoft is hoping to make its scareware blocker even better by gathering feedback from users. There will be an option to report sites that might not be initially caught by the blocker or reporting if a site is actually legitimate and doesn’t need to be blocked. Users will be asked to send a screenshot along with some diagnostic information when submitting their reports.
To begin using the scareware blocker, users must participate in the preview program and Edge needs to be up to date. Go to the Edge “Settings” panel, click on “Privacy, search, and services,” and click on the toggle to the right of “Scareware blocker” to enable the feature. Users may need to close and reopen the browser after updating for the option to appear.
It's good to see Microsoft is adding more security tools to Edge to help keep users safe. The decision to have this all run locally should put those with privacy concerns at ease and spur wide adoption of the feature. Hopefully this feature works well and begins to roll out to all users sooner rather than later.