10 Facts About SmartScreen

SmartScreen is a cloud-based anti-phishing and anti-malware component included in several Microsoft products, including operating systems Windows 8 and later, the applications Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge.

SmartScreen intelligence is used in the backend of Microsoft's online services such as the web app Outlook.

SmartScreen was first introduced in Internet Explorer 7, then known as the Phishing Filter.

The effectiveness of SmartScreen filtering has been reported to be superior to socially engineered malware protection in other browsers.

SmartScreen shipped with each version of Microsoft Edge, mostly with Internet Explorer parity, in progressive versions adding protection improvements targeting new consumer threat classes like tech support scams or adding new enterprise configurability features.

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When SmartScreen is left at its default settings, the administrator needs to launch and run the program.

SmartScreen protects against spoofed domain names in emails to verify whether an email is sent by the domain which it claims to be sent.

SmartScreen Filter was noted for adding legitimate sites to its blocklists almost instantaneously, as opposed to the several hours it took for blocklists to be updated on other browsers.

SmartScreen Filter creates a problem for small software vendors when they distribute an updated version of installation or binary files over the internet.

Whenever an updated version is released, SmartScreen responds by stating that the file is not commonly downloaded and can therefore install harmful files on your system.