Edge browser’s ‘scareware blocker’ tool is now enabled by default

Hey, you! Yes, you, on the iPhone! You’ve got a virus in your Windows PC! Better download this totally legit free app and let it scan all your files for threats and such. So goes the pitch for a trillion or so pop-ups that try to alarm you into an unwise download. Microsoft’s Edge browser now protects against such “scareware” by default.

The real-time scanner is turned on in Edge version 142 for any Windows or Mac device with at least 2GB of RAM and four CPU cores, which should be pretty much everything sold in the last five years or so. Microsoft says that the browser’s Scareware Blocker can start blocking scams “hours or even days before they appear on global blocklists,” according to data from a preview program that started earlier this year.

Microsoft says Scareware Blocker has detected all the usual “you’ve got a virus” BS, fake Blue Screens of Death (they’re black now), fake ransomware demands (that would be one kind of criminal pretending to be another kind of criminal, har har), and pages pretending to be law enforcement accusing the user of crimes.

Edge can use the real-time scareware sensor to inform Windows Defender SmartScreen, which will enhance the protection for all Windows users. The setting is turned off by default, even though the Edge Blog says that it works “without sharing screenshots or any extra data beyond what SmartScreen already receives.” (Someone in Redmond got gun-shy after all that Recall business, huh?) The setting can reportedly help a detected scam reduce its spread from 30 percent of users before an active block is put up, down to just 5 percent.

If you encounter a scam that didn’t trip the detector, or if you’re getting a lot of false positives, you can still share reports and screenshots manually. And I think—or at least hope—that those manual user reports would carry a lot more weight than the regular scans.