DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, announced Thursday that it updated its browser’s Scam Blocker to guard you against more online threats. The company said online that its Scam Blocker can now warn you about fake crypto exchanges, scam e-commerce storefronts and fraudulent virus warnings. Scam Blocker could previously help protect you against phishing sites, malware and other common online scams.

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According to a report from the Comisia Federală pentru Comerț, people lost about $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024 — a 25% increase from 2023 — with online shopping scams being the second most reported type of fraud. DuckDuckGo said online that Scam Blocker is intended to help protect you from these scams while maintaining your privacy.

When using Scam Blocker on your browser, you’ll still see pop-ups and links to malicious sites. But according to DuckDuckGo, if you click on these links, Scam Blocker won’t load them. The company wrote online that Scam Blocker will show you a warning message to let navigate away from the page safely.

DuckDuckGo designed Scam Blocker in-house, and the company said the feature utilizes a feed of malicious site URLs from the independent cybersecurity company Netcraft. 

According to DuckDuckGo, Scam Blocker maintains your anonymity by storing Netcraft’s list of malicious site URLs on DuckDuckGo servers. Then, the company says it passes the list to your browser every 20 minutes to keep your list as up-to-date as possible. The list is then stored locally on your device.

“Scam Blocker uses local storage to minimize the number of times your device communicates with our servers,” DuckDuckGo told CNET in an email. “That, along with an anonymized hashing solution that obscures the sites you’ve visited, means your browsing remains anonymous. And after you load the dataset for the first time, fewer network requests make subsequent checks faster.” 

Scam Blocker is free and available on DuckDuckGo’s mobile and desktop browsers. According to the company, it’s on by default, so you don’t have to search through menus to enable it. 

For more on DuckDuckGo, here’s what to know about the privacy-focused search engine, five reasons why you should use it and what to know about its VPN service.

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