McAfee SiteAdvisor
Posted by: Tim Tibbetts on: 06/12/2006 11:00 PM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
SiteAdvisor was founded in April 2005 by a group of MIT engineers who wanted to make the Web safer for their family and friends. Having spent one too many holiday breaks trying to clean a mess of spam, Adware, and spyware from their families' computers, they decided to take action! This is something any geek can relate to.
SiteAdvisor is a small download, even for dial-up users, and will install as a toolbar under Internet Explorer and Firefox. You can find a privacy policy clearly linked to in a fairly short license agreement upon installation. Installation is straight-forward with the only option being whether you want to participate in the "product improvement program". This program allows anonymous data to be recorded so they can find out about websites you might visit that they are not familiar with.
At the end of the install, you are taken to a page that explains how the program works. More specifically it explains how the small icon works by showing you a green (safe) or red (unsafe) color. It also provided links to Yahoo! and Google to show you how SiteAdvisor puts icons next to your search results allowing you to see in advance if a website is safe, unsafe, or questionable.
[thumb]siteadvisor1.jpg[/thumb]
SiteAdvisor has only one flaw. It allows comments to be made that are not monitored in any way. This means anyone can create an account, rate a website and say whatever they want. In the case of Majorgeeks.Com (a safe site, of course) one complained of popups, that we do not run, and another one about links from MajorGeeks to the authors as “bad sites”. Another good example is Windows Update, where one user ranked the website as a "poor shopping experience" and included links to download Linux. Mcafeee's own SiteAdvisor comment page includes a "bad shopping experience" with a comment made to complain about other people who have good reputations as reviewers. Another complains about SiteAdvisor; again rating the site a "bad shopping experience", while continuing the trend of using all caps, horrible grammar and spelling. In other words, some "reviewers" rate a webpage negatively based on reasons other then the websites security, which is the purpose of SiteAdvisor. Occasionally, these comments are made by less tech savvy people who make assumptions. Luckily, the positive and accurate comments tend to stand out more; however, this remains the programs only major downside. Of course, you do not need to read the comments, you can simply keep an eye out for the color coded red and green on your toolbar, or the colored checkmarks when you search.
[thumb]siteadvisor2.jpg[/thumb]
After weeks of testing, SiteAdvisor has been very accurate in warning me of safe and/or unsafe websites. I had certain websites in mind that I looked forward to testing including websites which make false promises of mal-ware free downloads as well as not sending out unsolicited emails (of which SiteAdvisor warned me in all instances). Strangely, some websites like porn.com come up as green. Since the website does not run popups (although I did have a popups blocked), nor collect email, it is considered safe. This is something you’ll want to keep in mind if you thought this toolbar might block all porn websites.
Without a doubt, SiteAdvisor needs a little work. There are very active communities out there who fight mal-ware on a daily basis and recruiting some of these people to submit data and leave brief, quality comments would go a long way to making SiteAdvisor a tool every computer must have. That said, SiteAdvisor is a handy tool than can be used to avoid websites that could potentially cause harm to your computer and it is a welcome addition to my Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers.
Score:
(4/5 Stars)
SiteAdvisor is a small download, even for dial-up users, and will install as a toolbar under Internet Explorer and Firefox. You can find a privacy policy clearly linked to in a fairly short license agreement upon installation. Installation is straight-forward with the only option being whether you want to participate in the "product improvement program". This program allows anonymous data to be recorded so they can find out about websites you might visit that they are not familiar with.
At the end of the install, you are taken to a page that explains how the program works. More specifically it explains how the small icon works by showing you a green (safe) or red (unsafe) color. It also provided links to Yahoo! and Google to show you how SiteAdvisor puts icons next to your search results allowing you to see in advance if a website is safe, unsafe, or questionable.
[thumb]siteadvisor1.jpg[/thumb]
SiteAdvisor has only one flaw. It allows comments to be made that are not monitored in any way. This means anyone can create an account, rate a website and say whatever they want. In the case of Majorgeeks.Com (a safe site, of course) one complained of popups, that we do not run, and another one about links from MajorGeeks to the authors as “bad sites”. Another good example is Windows Update, where one user ranked the website as a "poor shopping experience" and included links to download Linux. Mcafeee's own SiteAdvisor comment page includes a "bad shopping experience" with a comment made to complain about other people who have good reputations as reviewers. Another complains about SiteAdvisor; again rating the site a "bad shopping experience", while continuing the trend of using all caps, horrible grammar and spelling. In other words, some "reviewers" rate a webpage negatively based on reasons other then the websites security, which is the purpose of SiteAdvisor. Occasionally, these comments are made by less tech savvy people who make assumptions. Luckily, the positive and accurate comments tend to stand out more; however, this remains the programs only major downside. Of course, you do not need to read the comments, you can simply keep an eye out for the color coded red and green on your toolbar, or the colored checkmarks when you search.
[thumb]siteadvisor2.jpg[/thumb]
After weeks of testing, SiteAdvisor has been very accurate in warning me of safe and/or unsafe websites. I had certain websites in mind that I looked forward to testing including websites which make false promises of mal-ware free downloads as well as not sending out unsolicited emails (of which SiteAdvisor warned me in all instances). Strangely, some websites like porn.com come up as green. Since the website does not run popups (although I did have a popups blocked), nor collect email, it is considered safe. This is something you’ll want to keep in mind if you thought this toolbar might block all porn websites.
Without a doubt, SiteAdvisor needs a little work. There are very active communities out there who fight mal-ware on a daily basis and recruiting some of these people to submit data and leave brief, quality comments would go a long way to making SiteAdvisor a tool every computer must have. That said, SiteAdvisor is a handy tool than can be used to avoid websites that could potentially cause harm to your computer and it is a welcome addition to my Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers.
Score:
(4/5 Stars)
