Yahoo! searches get safer with McAfee
Written by admin on May 7th, 2008 in Gadgets and Devices.
McAfee have a very useful and free browser plug-in called SiteAdvisor. Once installed searches done on the most popular search engines have a traffic light symbol rendered next to the results. It offers users an extra level of security; and by mousing over the symbol more information on how good or bad that site is appears in a pop-up.
Now Yahoo! and McAfee have teamed up to offer SearchScan, which integrates SiteAdvisor directly into Yahoo! search results. It provides information on how risky the different search results are, as well as offering you settings for filtering adult web, video and image results.
SearchScan should already be available to those accessing Yahoo! in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. A small SearchScan text link will appear in the top right hand corner of the Yahoo! search page telling you the status of the protection. You can also click the text to access its settings.
Tim Dowling, McAfee vice president of Web Security Group commented:
We are very excited to have Yahoo! as a partner to make the Internet more secure for everyone … The advance warning offered by McAfee SiteAdvisor is one of the strongest weapons in the battle against online threats. Research indicates that 4 out of 5 Web site visits start with a search, and consumers who use Yahoo! Search will now be alerted to high-risk Web sites. This protects users from known malicious threats such as browser exploits that will wreck their PC with a single click or spyware that can lead to identity theft.oh
This new functionality is part of a new multi-year McAfee Yahoo! partnership that sees SiteAdvisor integrated into searches and eventually Yahoo! search offered to McAfee product users.
Read more at the Associated Press article and the Yahoo! press release
Matthew’s Opinion
I’ve been using the SiteAdvisor plug-in with Firefox for a while now and I find it does help. When I do a search there are usually some results that rank quite highly coming up red, and mousing over the symbol shows you just how dangerous they are. These are links I would have clicked on without the warning as there was nothing that seemed malicious about them.
Integration into the search engine itself makes the system even more useful as the user doesn’t have to do anything to get the increased security. It looks like McAfee benefit through name association and the increased access people will have to a link to its other security products.
For the moment I still advise downloading the browser plug-in as it gives an additional tab on your status bar and works with more search engines. You can also get similar functionality if you use the new AVG Free 8.0, which now has LinkScanner.
Tags: pvp, MP3, DAB, hdtv
