Free tool tells you which websites to trust
Posted 8 March 2007 at 2:08PM by Simon Dickson in Internet security
A 2006 survey revealed Google to be one of British internet users' most trusted websites... but of course, the many sites you might find in a typical Google search aren't always so trustworthy. How do you know if a particular search result points to a 'safe' site?
That's where Site Advisor, a free tool from security software company McAfee comes in. You simply download a small add-on for either Internet Explorer or Firefox, and when you search Google, you'll see a red, amber or green icon showing whether or not a site is considered safe or not.
Ratings are based on a combination of automated tests by McAfee themselves and feedback from users of the tool, with roughly five per cent of sites getting a red (unsafe) rating. The Site Advisor database contains details of more than 8 million websites, covering more than 95% of web traffic.
Of course, to get the necessary information, your PC has to send details of your internet behaviour back to Site Advisor HQ; the database is too big and too frequently updated to download to your PC with the tool itself. That might be a privacy concern in itself... but Site Advisor is rated green, so that's OK... isn't it? :)
Tags: free, google, mcafee, phishing, search
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