Frequently asked questions

Install The Barrier from its Chrome Web Store listing in Google Chrome, or its Microsoft Edge Add-ons listing in Microsoft Edge, then sign in with an account on thebarrier.co, using Google Sign-In or an email address and password. The extension needs you to be signed in before it can analyze a listing.

You can use The Barrier with 10 analyses per day. Pro, a monthly plan with more analyses, is coming soon.

The Barrier works on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

The Barrier works on job listing pages on Naukri, Dice, We Work Remotely, Wellfound, CrawlJobs and ZipRecruiter. It does not run on any other website.

Yes. Creating an account is required to use The Barrier, including its core scanning feature. You can create one with Google Sign-In or with an email address and password.

The Barrier automatically scans job listings as you browse and flags scams, ghost jobs, and exploitative postings using AI plus 500+ documented scam patterns.

The score (0–100) reflects how many red-flag patterns were found and how serious they are. 0–15 Minimal (green): no significant red flags. 16–39 Low (blue): a few minor concerns. 40–59 Medium (amber): several red flags worth reviewing. 60–79 High (orange): significant red flags, proceed carefully. 80–100 Critical (red): strong indicators of a scam or exploitative listing. The color band is the real signal — a 24 and a 27 aren't meaningfully different.

Confidence is how strongly the detected patterns support the rating — not how certain the AI is. Higher confidence means more, or more severe, red flags were found. Lower confidence (starting around 60%) often means nothing suspicious was detected at all, not that we're unsure.

Yes. A low score means The Barrier didn't find significant red flags, not that the job is guaranteed to be genuine: The Barrier is an informational tool and can't guarantee any analysis is complete or error-free. For listings with no major red flags, The Barrier still suggests verifying the salary range, confirming the company exists on LinkedIn, and asking about team size before investing serious time.

Read the AI Analysis and Risk Indicators in The Barrier's panel to see exactly what triggered the score, then decide. You don't have to know for certain it's a scam. The Barrier gives you the information. What you do with it is entirely up to you. If you believe the listing is a scam, report it so other job seekers are warned.

Open any job page with the extension active and click "Report This Listing" — enough reports flag it as CRITICAL for everyone.

The Barrier isn't just AI — it's job seekers looking out for each other. When enough people flag the same listing, it's automatically marked Critical (score 100, confidence 100%), regardless of what the automated scan found. We trust the community over the algorithm, and the extension makes clear the rating comes from user reports.

Job text is analyzed and then discarded — only the analysis result is stored, never the listing itself. See our Privacy Policy for details.

The Barrier stores a cache of each analysis for 60 days (the job page URL, the risk score, severity and confidence, the AI explanation, and the red-flag categories with the short phrases that matched them), community reports (an identifier for the job URL, a timestamp and an anonymous device identifier), an anonymous device identifier with your browser's user-agent string and install and last-active dates, and your account email and plan status. The listing text itself is not stored. The Privacy Policy has the full list.

Pro isn't available yet. It's coming soon, and we'll announce it on the site and in the extension.

Email support@thebarrier.co. Requests about your data (such as deleting your account) get a response within 7 days.

A ghost job is a job listing that stays live and pulls in resumes with no plan to fill it. Read more in Why Ghost Jobs Are Harder to Spot in 2026.

A job scam is a listing that wants something from you: money, your ID documents, your bank details, or free work. A ghost job usually just wastes your time; a scam tries to take something from you. Read more in Texas Investigates LinkedIn Over Alleged Ghost Jobs.

Report it. In the US, report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and ic3.gov. In India, report it at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930. You can also report the listing in The Barrier so other job seekers are warned.