Malwarebytes Browser Guard vs RedPhish: Which Browser Protection Is Better For Your Business?

Keeping staff safe online is hard. Phishing pages look real, malvertising hides in ad networks, and one bad click can turn into a very bad day.

If you have tried consumer tools like Malwarebytes Browser Guard and wondered how they compare to a business focused extension like RedPhish, this guide walks through the tradeoffs.

You will see what each tool actually does in the browser, how they handle threats, and which one fits best for small and midsize businesses, schools, and larger enterprises.

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Table of contents

• What is Malwarebytes Browser Guard
• What is RedPhish
• Protection coverage: what each one blocks
• How detection works under the hood
• Privacy and data handling
• User experience and customization
• Admin and enterprise features
• Pricing comparison
• Which should you choose
• How to roll this into your security stack

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What is Malwarebytes Browser Guard

Malwarebytes Browser Guard is a free browser extension from Malwarebytes that focuses on safer browsing and cleaner pages.

CyberNews describes it as a feature-rich ad blocker that also blocks third party ads, trackers, malicious programs, scams, and phishing attempts, and notes that it runs on Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox. (cybernews.com)

In CyberNews testing, Browser Guard scored 99 percent on the adblock.turtlecute.org benchmark, placing it in the top tier of browser-based blockers for general browsing. (cybernews.com) In a separate test on AdBlock Tester it scored 71 out of 100, which shows that results can vary a bit by environment and site mix. (cybernews.com)

For phishing, CyberNews gathered 20 fresh phishing URLs from PhishTank and tested them with Malwarebytes Browser Guard in Firefox. The extension blocked 17 out of 20 links, an 85 percent success rate in that specific test. (cybernews.com)

Key traits based on independent testing and reviews:

• Free extension that pairs well with Malwarebytes Premium, but does not require it
• Strong ad and tracker blocking for normal sites, with weaker results on some streaming platforms and YouTube
• Per site controls and an allow list so users can toggle ads, scams, and malware categories for specific domains

There are some downsides to keep in mind. CyberNews points out that performance can be unstable on streaming sites and that effectiveness on platforms like YouTube is not perfect. (cybernews.com) A BleepingComputer forum thread also documents a user reporting high CPU usage with the Edge version of Browser Guard, though this is anecdotal and may depend heavily on local configuration. (bleepingcomputer.com)

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What is RedPhish

RedPhish is a lean, security focused browser extension built for organizations that need protection at scale, not just for a single home user.

Core audience:

• Small and midsize business owners who want simple, strong browser protection for staff
• Schools that need to combine safety, content controls, and privacy
• Enterprise teams that need user level visibility and control across many endpoints

In plain language, RedPhish is everything you wish a consumer extension was. It blocks phishing, malware, ads, tracking cookies, cryptominers, card skimmers, and adult content without ruining your normal browsing experience.

RedPhish currently supports:

• Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Opera and other Chromium based browsers
• Firefox

That covers the major desktop browsers that businesses actually deploy today.

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Protection coverage: what each one blocks

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

From public testing and product documentation, Browser Guard focuses on:

• Phishing and scam sites
• Malicious or suspicious domains that may distribute malware
• Third party ads and many forms of tracking
• Potentially unwanted programs delivered over the web

In practice, think of it as a hybrid ad blocker and safe browsing extension for individuals and small teams. It significantly cleans up ad clutter on normal sites, with mixed performance on some streaming services and video platforms. (cybernews.com)

RedPhish

RedPhish is intentionally broader and more opinionated. It is designed to remove as much dangerous and distracting content as possible while keeping pages usable.

Current categories RedPhish blocks:

• Phishing and credential harvesting pages
• Malvertising and ad based redirects
• Malware downloads and exploit delivery sites
• Tech support scams and fake warning pages
• Adult content
• Cryptomining scripts
• Tracking scripts and tracking cookies
• Card skimming JavaScript on checkout pages

RedPhish also tries to strip out visual ad units and objects that host ads to provide a clean, distraction free browsing experience.

Summary

If you want a free, consumer friendly extension with decent ad blocking and basic phishing defense, Malwarebytes Browser Guard is attractive.

If you want aggressive blocking of everything bad in a business context, including adult content and card skimmers, RedPhish has a wider security scope.

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How detection works under the hood

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

Independent reviews of Malwarebytes focus more on the full desktop product, but they do shed light on how the ecosystem thinks about detection.

For web threats, Malwarebytes products lean on:

• Real-time web protection that checks URLs against reputational data
• Behavior-based detection for some malicious content
• Central cloud intelligence that is updated based on reports and telemetry

Browser Guard benefits from this ecosystem by checking links and scripts in the browser, combining blocklists and reputation with categories like scams and malware. (cybernews.com)

RedPhish

RedPhish takes a more modern and focused approach for the browser itself.

It uses:

• A custom scanning engine that evaluates pages and URLs in real time
• Machine learning models that look at URL structure and content signals common in phishing and malvertising
• TLD awareness and domain reputation to score risk
• A real-time threat intelligence database that continuously pulls indicators of compromise from leading global sources

In practice, this means RedPhish does not just wait for a URL to end up on a static blocklist. It scores what the user is about to click and applies several layers of logic to decide whether to allow, warn, or block.

For organizations, that difference matters. Static lists are good at yesterday's threats. Reputation plus machine learning can move faster when new kits are slightly modified copies of old ones.

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Privacy and data handling

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

CyberNews notes that Malwarebytes Browser Guard is free and that much of the value for Malwarebytes comes from pairing it with their paid antivirus. (cybernews.com)

Malwarebytes has a public privacy policy that describes how they use telemetry, but independent reviews do not go deep into Browser Guard specific data flows. In general, you can expect:

• Some telemetry about threats and blocked content
• Some metadata about the environment for security and reliability
• Central logging to improve detections over time

If your organization has strict data locality or no log retention rules, you should review Malwarebytes policy documents and possibly run your own DPI checks.

RedPhish

RedPhish is built around a stricter privacy model.

• The extension only sends URLs to the backend to be scanned.
• Once the scan result is returned, the URL is deleted.
• There is no user history, session logging, or long-term data retention.
• No personal browsing history is stored by the service.

For many schools and privacy conscious businesses, the idea that the vendor does not retain user traffic logs is a key advantage.

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User experience and customization

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

CyberNews and other reviewers highlight that Browser Guard has:

• A clean, modern interface
• Per site controls so users can allow or block ads, scams, and malware by site
• A statistics view that shows how many ads, trackers, and scams were blocked

This is great for power users. It is less ideal in a managed environment where you do not want staff constantly whitelisting sites to get something to work. (cybernews.com)

There are also some reports of heavier resource use in certain setups, such as the Edge CPU example on BleepingComputer, though that is not universal. (bleepingcomputer.com)

RedPhish

RedPhish intentionally goes in the opposite direction for end users.

• Very little customization in the extension itself
• No complex settings pages for normal staff
• The goal is to install it once and forget it

For employees that is perfect. It works in the background without constant prompts.

For administrators, controls live in a separate admin console, not on the endpoint.

• Central dashboard for user and device management
• Data analytics to see blocked threats and trends across the organization
• Controls to add or remove users, assign plans, and manage billing

That separation of concerns keeps the browser extension simple while still giving security teams real control.

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Admin and enterprise features

This is where the biggest gap appears.

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

Browser Guard is designed first for individual users who grab it from a browser extension store. It can be used in small businesses, but it is not built around:

• Multi-tenant organization structures
• Per user analytics and reporting
• Central policy control over categories like adult content or cryptomining

You can pair Browser Guard with Malwarebytes business products and manage things at the endpoint level, but that becomes more than a simple browser extension deployment and changes the pricing and rollout model. (cybernews.com)

RedPhish

RedPhish is built for teams from day one.

For schools and businesses, the admin dashboard gives you:

• A unified view of users, with the ability to invite, deactivate, or move them between plans
• Analytics about what categories of threats are being blocked across the environment
• A way to show value, for example blocked phishing attempts, cryptominer scripts, and adult content over a month

Because the endpoint experience is simple, training is minimal. Most of the work happens in rollout and policy design, not in explaining UI elements to staff.

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Pricing comparison

Malwarebytes Browser Guard

• Browser Guard is free to install and use on supported browsers. (cybernews.com)
• Malwarebytes encourages users to upgrade to its paid antivirus and security suites for full endpoint coverage. Pricing for those products starts around the mid double digits per device per year in CyberNews reporting. (cybernews.com)

For a very small business with only a few users, staying on the free extension plus a handful of paid Malwarebytes seats can be cost effective.

RedPhish

RedPhish uses a simple, transparent subscription model.

• Starter: $5/mo (at time of writing)
  • Includes 5,000 URL scans per month
  • All protection features included
• Pro: $15/mo (at time of writing)
  • Unlimited URL scans
  • All protection features included
• Enterprise: custom pricing
  • Based on user count and usage
  • Same core protection, with enterprise scale and support

There is no separate upsell to unlock specific protection categories. If you pay, you get phishing, malware, ad blocking, cryptominer blocking, card skimmer protection, and adult content blocking across the board.

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Which should you choose

A simple way to think about it:

Choose Malwarebytes Browser Guard if:

• You want a free, mainstream extension for individual users or very small teams
• You already use Malwarebytes on endpoints and want a matching browser extension
• You value user level control and do not mind staff toggling site settings when something breaks

Choose RedPhish if:

• You own or run a small or midsize business and want to reduce risk from phishing, malvertising, and adult content across staff browsers
• You manage a school and need both safety and privacy, without building your own filter lists
• You run security or IT for an enterprise and need analytics, admin dashboards, and simple deployment at scale
• You want machine learning based detection and a real time threat intelligence backend, but you do not want your vendor to retain user browsing logs

In many environments, a common pattern will be:

• Use RedPhish as the primary browser security layer for staff and students.
• Pair it with your chosen endpoint protection and email security stack.
• Reserve consumer extensions like Browser Guard for home users and very small side projects.

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How to roll this into your security stack

For most organizations, the easiest way to roll out RedPhish is to push it through your existing device management tools so that it simply appears in everyone's browser.

Rolling out RedPhish with Chrome Enterprise Core

If you manage Chrome or Chromium based browsers with Chrome Enterprise Core or Google Workspace:

1. Add the RedPhish extension to your managed apps and extensions for the right organizational units.
2. Set the install type to force install so that RedPhish is automatically deployed to each managed browser without user action.
3. Optionally apply any organization wide policies so that staff see a consistent experience on every machine.

From a user point of view, this looks like a normal browser update. The next time they open Chrome, RedPhish is already installed, enabled, and protecting their browsing without any extra prompts.

Rolling out RedPhish with Microsoft Intune

If you manage Windows devices and Microsoft Edge with Intune:

1. Add RedPhish as a managed browser extension for Edge, and target the security or user groups that should receive it.
2. Assign the policy so that the extension is installed and kept up to date on those devices.
3. Keep any configuration on the server side so that users do not have to touch settings.

Again, the experience for employees is simple. The extension shows up in Edge on its own, and they can keep working without learning a new tool.

Onboarding the team

Because RedPhish is designed to "just work," onboarding is mostly communication, not training.

• Let people know that a new browser protection extension will appear in Chrome or Edge.
• Explain in one or two sentences what it does and that it helps block phishing, malware, and distracting or unsafe content.
• Encourage them to report any site that looks broken so you can investigate, but make clear they do not need to configure anything.

The result is a fast rollout with very little friction. Your security team gets better protection and visibility, while staff get a safer browser that mostly stays out of the way.