Microsoft announced its new scareware blocker at the 2024 Ignite conference a few months ago and now it’s ready for users to try out. This preview is open to everyone who uses Edge; you just need to make sure you have previews enabled and that your browser is up to date.
Everyone knows about malware nowadays, which means people can get anxious very quickly if they have reason to think their PC has been infected. Scareware scams take advantage of this, using underhanded tactics to make users feel like they’re not in control of their PCs and need to call the “tech support” number provided onscreen. The scammer then gains access to the computer by guiding the user over the phone.
Edge already uses Microsoft Defender SmartScreen to block known examples of these scams, but this new scareware blocker uses a machine learning model to detect new and unknown scams that get past SmartScreen.
This works pretty much how you’d expect — the tool uses computer vision to view the webpage and compare it to the many examples of scareware screens it has in its dataset. One of scareware’s most popular tactics is to use fullscreen mode to make users feel like they’re no longer in control of their computers.
While you can always press ESC to exit fullscreen mode, some people might not know this trick or forget it in the moment. To help out, the scareware blocker will automatically back out of fullscreen mode and warn you about the webpage. Some scareware scams will even try to hijack your keyboard and prevent you from pressing ESC, so the blocker will be particularly useful in these situations. The warning will include a screenshot of the website so you can see whether it really was a scareware scam or not.
If the blocker got it right, you can click to close the page and choose to report the malicious site which will add it to the list of known scams that SmartScreen can deal with. If it got it wrong, you can continue to the page and choose to report it as a false alarm to help train the model and improve its accuracy.
The more people use it, the better the results will get. You don’t have to be a part of the Insiders program to access this preview, so you can turn it on for yourself and your family members right away — I know I will be.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.