Tech
4 of the best robocall-blocking apps and tools for avoiding phone spam
If there's one thing people with iPhones and Android phones can agree on, it's this: Robocalls suck. They're annoying autodialers at best and illegal scams at worst, and they're part of an ongoing problem the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been trying to crack down on for years.
A report conducted by the visual voicemail and robocall-blocking software company YouMail estimates that about 52.8 billion robocalls were placed to U.S. consumers in 2024, which worked out to nearly 200 robocalls for every adult with a phone throughout the year. That's down from a pre-pandemic peak of 58 billion robocalls placed in 2019 thanks to FCC enforcement actions in recent years. But it's still enough to make unwanted calls the agency's single largest source of consumer complaints and No. 1 consumer protection priority.
"The FCC knows that these calls are a major concern of millions of Americans, and scam calls in particular can result in very real financial losses and serious consumer frustration," the agency writes on its website.
The FCC has extended its efforts to robotexts in recent years, calling them a "growing problem" and one of the "latest scamming trends." It received more than 24,000 consumer complaints about unwanted texts in the first 10 months of 2024.
You may think you'd be savvy enough to know whether someone trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty is a scammer. But as robocalls have increased in frequency over the past few years, they've gotten more convincing, too. In its latest U.S. Spam & Scam Report, the robocall-blocking app Truecaller called out scammers' increased use of artificial intelligence to make robocalls and robotext scripts "sound more realistic and effective." The report noted that one in four Americans reported losing an average of $452 to phone scams in 2023.
What is the best way to stop robocalls and robotexts?
Then-FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel created a dedicated Robocall Response Team in 2021 "to leverage the talents of enforcers, attorneys, policy makers, engineers, economists, and outreach experts" in the agency's fight against robocalls. Since then, the FCC has required phone companies to implement caller ID authentication, enacted rules that stop international robocalls from entering American phone networks, and expanded the restrictions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to count AI robocalls as illegal "junk calls." Most recently, it proposed a fine of nearly $4.5 million against a communications provider that appeared to allow robocallers posing as FCC staff.
But federal efforts alone won't be the answer to all of our robocall woes. "Advances in technology have unfortunately allowed illegal and spoofed robocalls to be made from anywhere in the world and more cheaply and easily than ever before," the FCC concedes. "That's why it's become more of a problem for consumers and a more difficult problem to solve." Bad actors' constant rule-skirting has created an infinite game of whack-a-mole.
There's also the issue that many robocalls you get are, in fact, legal, and maybe even wanted — think appointment reminders and emergency alerts. (A robocall's legality depends on several factors, including the technology used to make it, whether it's to a landline or mobile number, and whether it's from a telemarketer who's gotten your consent.) Weeding out illegal calls in real-time without blocking lawful calls is the "most complex part" of the agency's robocall smackdown, it says.
So where does that leave consumers? Along with ignoring calls from unknown or unfamiliar numbers (then blocking them) and listing your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry, the FCC says consumers can also utilize robocall-blocking apps and services.
Many major phone carriers offer apps for dealing with unwanted calls (ex: AT&T's ActiveArmor, Verizon's Call Filter, and T-Mobile's Scam Shield), so check with yours to see what's available. Phone manufacturers like Apple and Google offer opt-in silencing services that prevent unknown numbers' calls from ringing, too. But if you don't think those tools are powerful enough — most don't actually stop robocalls; they just identify their sources or send them directly to voicemail — you've also got the option of downloading a third-party robocall-blocking app that's purpose-built to stop scammers in their tracks.
What's the best robocall blocker app?
First, some important fine print about these third-party solutions. The pros: Upfront costs for your average call blocker app aren't exorbitant, and most don't require much storage space on your phone. Oftentimes, you won't even be able to tell the app's there. (Some of them are capable of screening and blocking unwanted calls before a user's phone even rings.)
But as former Mashable tech reporter Ray Wong reported, that convenience comes at a cost:
"According to TechCrunch and Dan Hastings, a security researcher at NCC Group, many top robocall-blocking apps share your phone number with analytics firms and [upload] device information such as device type and software version to companies like Facebook without your explicit consent."
To further quote Wong: "Yikes!"
Not every robocall-blocking app is an offender, but even if the one you use doesn't share or sell your data under the table, it probably still collects it. (Many apps rely on a crowdsourced database of numbers to cross-check anonymous callers with already-identified culprits, and those numbers have to come from somewhere — i.e., users' contacts lists.) It's safe to assume, then, that when you're using a third-party blocker app, you're putting personal information like your name, your IP address, and/or your smartphone's name, model, and operating system up for grabs.
All of that being said: If you can get past those privacy concerns, installing a third-party robocall-blocking app remains one of the best and most reliable ways to prevent robocallers, telemarketers, and even pesky political campaigns from reaching you on your smartphone. Just be sure to do your due diligence and pore over its privacy policy first so you know exactly what you're signing up for.
Here are four robocall-blocking apps and tools that we recommend looking into based on their features and user ratings.
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It seems OpenAI has been caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Anthropic has reportedly cut off OpenAI’s access to Anthropic’s APIs over what Anthropic is calling a terms of service breach.
As reported by Wired, multiple sources claim that OpenAI has been cut off from Anthropic’s APIs. Allegedly, OpenAI was using Anthropic’s Claude Code to assist in creating and testing OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5, which is due to release in August.
According to these sources, OpenAI was plugging into Claude’s internal tools instead of using the chat interface. From there, they used the API to run tests against GPT-5 to check things like coding and creative writing against Claude to compare performance. OpenAI allegedly also tested safety prompts related to things like CSAM, self-harm, and defamation. This would give OpenAI data that it could then use to fine-tune GPT-5 to make it more competitive against Claude.
Unfortunately for OpenAI, this violates Anthropic’s commercial terms of service, which ban companies from using Anthropic’s tools to build competitor AI products.
“Customer may not and must not attempt to access the Services to build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models or resell the Services except as expressly approved by Anthropic,” the terms read.
OpenAI responded by saying that what the company was doing was an industry standard, as all the AI companies test their models against the competing models. The company then went on to say that it respected Anthropic’s decision but expressed disappointment in having its API access shut off, especially considering that Anthropic’s access to OpenAI’s API remains open.
A spokesperson told Wired that OpenAI’s access would be reinstated for “benchmarking and safety evaluations.”
It’s not the first time this year that Anthropic has cut off API access. In June, the company cut off Windsurf’s API access after rumors that it was being sold to OpenAI. That deal ultimately fell through, but Anthropic’s cofounder, Jared Kaplan, told TechCrunch at the time that “it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI.”
Anthropic has also tweaked its rate limits for Claude, which will take effect in late August, with one of the reasons being that a small number of users are violating the company’s policy by sharing and reselling accounts.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time for yet another earnings call with concerning ideas for generating more revenue. This time around, it's Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who told shareholders on Thursday that there’s “significant financial opportunity” in delivering ads through Alexa+, the company’s new AI-powered voice assistant.
“I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue,” Jassy said, per the investor call transcript.
Since launching earlier this year, Alexa+ has reportedly reached millions of users. Unlike the original Alexa, which mostly turns off lights and sets timers, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, context-aware, and AI-driven. It can help you plan your date night, entertain your kids, and even dabble in basic image and video generation — all under the banner of your $14.99/month Prime subscription.
But so far, Amazon Alexa has been an ad-free experience. It's also more than 10 years old, and it doesn't make money; thus, it's been deemed a "colossal failure" by those within the company.
Of course, Amazon isn’t alone in trying to figure out how to make AI pay for itself. Both Google and OpenAI have explored ad integration in their AI products as a way to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in particular, has made a notable pivot: once firmly against advertising in his chatbot, he’s since reversed course, possibly opening the door for ads in future versions of ChatGPT.
Whatever the motivation, injecting ads into Alexa+ would mark a major shift in both user experience and Amazon’s strategy, especially given the assistant’s long history of being expensive to maintain and hard to monetize. Ad-supported Alexa+ could be Amazon’s attempt to finally turn its once-money-burning smart assistant into a revenue machine, without hiking the subscription fee (at least for now).
Alexa+ is still new, and what an ad-supported experience would actually look like remains unclear. According to Jassy, the idea is to frame ads as helpful, something to assist customers in discovering products they might be interested in buying.
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