There are millions of websites on the Internet. You may be visiting some of these websites regularly, however you may also be visiting some sites for the first time every day. Not all the websites on the Internet are safe to visit. There are several websites which are unsafe / dangerous since they may be spreading viruses, malware, spyware, or they may be indulging in phishing activities or sending spam mail, etc. Some sites may be so dangerous that they may try to automatically install some malware on your computer the moment to visit them. In view of these reasons, if you want to visit a website that appears to be suspicious or you’re not fully sure about the safety aspects of that site, it is advantages to know beforehand whether that website is safe to visit. In a previous article, Find out with Google if a site is safe for browsing, I’ve explained how you can utilize the free services of Google Safe Browsing to find out whether a particular website is safe or not. In this article, I’m explaining another useful free online service from McAfee Site Advisor to find out whether a particular website is safe to visit.
McAfee visits a large number of websites every day to test them comprehensively for various security threats. On the basis of this security check, McAfee rates the websites. A site rating is reflective of the reputation of the website, and it is based on interpretation of a variety of security test results conducted over a period of time. The site ratings awarded by McAfee are of the following types: (1) Very low or no risk issues found; (2) Minor risk issues found; (3) Serious risk issues found; and, (4) not yet rated, use caution.
McAfee Site Advisor displays the following colored icons for showing these site ratings:
To find out whether a particular website is safe to visit, enter the following URL in the address bar of the browser and then press Enter key:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/example.com
In the above URL, you must replace “example.com” with the web address of the site that you want to check for safety. For example, if you want to find out about the safety aspects of “yahoo.com”, you’ll have to use the following URL:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/yahoo.com
Upon entering this URL into the address bar of your browser, McAfee Site Advisor will show its report about various safety aspects of the website selected by you. A sample report is shown below (click on the image to view enlarged image):
(1) Downloads: McAfee checks all downloadable files from the website to find out whether adware, spyware, viruses, malware, and other types of malicious computer code have been included in these files. If a file is found to be containing a virus, Trojan, malware, etc., it is given a red rating.
(2) Emails: McAfee checks whether the website sends spam mail, since such mails can be used for phishing attacks, identity theft, etc.
(3) Browser exploit code: It checks whether a browser exploit code is installed automatically by the website on your computer without your knowledge. Such code can be used by unscrupulous people to install keystroke loggers which steal your passwords or to install Trojan programs on your computer.
(4) Phishing sites: A phishing site is an unauthorized copy of a real site such as a bank or a credit card company or an e-commerce site, etc. Such phishing sites try to make you to submit your personal information like passwords, credit card numbers and other important information by showing as if they were the real sites. McAfee checks for such phishing sites.
(5) Vulnerabilities in e-commerce sites: Daily tests are conducted on thousands of e-commerce websites to find out hacker vulnerabilities.
(6) Pop-ups, cookies and other annoyances: McAfee also tries to find out whether a particular website is using excessive pop-ups, cookies etc, or traps that spawn new pop-ups when you try to close or leave the site.
(7) Safety of links: McAfee also finds out whether the website has too many links that go to risky sites.
(8) Reputation of the website: Based on the data collected from millions of sensors located in a large number of countries, McAfee awards a reputation rating to a website.
It can thus be seen that McAfee Site Advisor conducts a large number of security tests to award a security or safety rating to a website. It may be mentioned that the safety report of the website displayed by McAfee Site Advisor may not always be absolutely perfect, and there may be some flaws in it. However, in most cases, its safety report would be reliable. In any case, it can give you an indication or at least a broad hint about the safety aspects of visiting a particular website. There is no harm in taking precautions when you’re visiting a new website that appears to be suspicious. It can also be useful to check the safety report about a website from McAfee if you want to download files from that site and you’re not sure whether that site is safe or not. As mentioned earlier, McAfee Site Advisor is an absolutely free service available online. So, you may try it as and when needed.
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