You Should All Get The Site Advisor Security Plug-In.

jman19999

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J
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
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Guys,

I downloaded Site Advisor from www.siteadvisor.com So far, I really like it. It's a small plug in that installs on your browser and tells you about the safety/security of sites before you go to them. It also claims to warn you about unsafe downloads from sites. As you search, (Currently in Yahoo or Google) one of three catagories is put next to the site in search engine results. A small indicator inside your broswer's toolbar also gives the following indicators when you go to a site:

Green: Site tested and found no problems

Yellow: Caution: Site tested and found some security issues. (Spaming, Scaming, Potential unsafe downloads)

Red: Site contains dangerous content and should be avoided.

It's put out by McAfee so at first I had my doubts! hahaha! But C-Net gave it a great review, and it's only like a 585kb plug in.

This way when you browse, (Works with Google and Yahoo Search engines.) anything that doesn't have a green mark next to it may be suspicious.

A plug in is available for both IE and Firefox.

You can also find out detailed information about a site, Automatic bots serf the web using this plug in and tell you about a site's security to give you an added layer of protection.

Jeff
 
Wow, this is looking to be one of the most useful things I've downloaded in a while, thanks.
They have a surprising amout of information, even for the green sites you can see how much email you can expect to get if you give the site your address, how many popups to expect
 
There are some things to be aware of with the software upon further review,

I did submit a similar response to McAfee with regards to this software. However, there are some things that need further testing. For instance, I typed in some explicit words in a search box on both Google and Yahoo and found green checkmarks by sites that obviously should have been red-X'ed that no one in their right minds would go to. I told McAfee about this in a feedback form. As a friend of many relatives and friends with kids, this is a great concern to me. On-line security should be a great concern to all of us. I understand that this software is not designed to block access, but a green-light on something that is so obviously a no-no? This needs further review.

Also, while I like the idea of being able to get detailed information about the site, what REALLY determines a sites overall green, yellow, or red rating? Some elements of the testing are done by web-bots, and some are done by user reviews in conjunction with web-bots. But what I am interesting in is, what draws the line or pushes a site from green to yellow to red status? Is it like ok 3 popups, and 4 spam e-mails are ok for a green rating but 4 pop ups and 5 spam e-mails make it yellow regardless of content?

What we have here is the potential to be a super product. But it needs further fine tuning along the content lines to determine how a site gets a rating.

Jeff
 
jman19999 said:
There are some things to be aware of with the software upon further review,

I did submit a similar response to McAfee with regards to this software. However, there are some things that need further testing. For instance, I typed in some explicit words in a search box on both Google and Yahoo and found green checkmarks by sites that obviously should have been red-X'ed that no one in their right minds would go to. I told McAfee about this in a feedback form. As a friend of many relatives and friends with kids, this is a great concern to me. On-line security should be a great concern to all of us. I understand that this software is not designed to block access, but a green-light on something that is so obviously a no-no? This needs further review.

Also, while I like the idea of being able to get detailed information about the site, what REALLY determines a sites overall green, yellow, or red rating? Some elements of the testing are done by web-bots, and some are done by user reviews in conjunction with web-bots. But what I am interesting in is, what draws the line or pushes a site from green to yellow to red status? Is it like ok 3 popups, and 4 spam e-mails are ok for a green rating but 4 pop ups and 5 spam e-mails make it yellow regardless of content?

What we have here is the potential to be a super product. But it needs further fine tuning along the content lines to determine how a site gets a rating.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Best Advise,

Use this product BUT ONLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH COMMON SENSE SEARCHING. If in doubt, DON'T GO TO ANY SITE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SITE ADVISOR SAYS.

Jeff
 
Here is more. An official response from McAfee concerning what this product does and does NOT do:

Thanks for the positive feedback, overall. Our goal is to help you
stay safe online by testing everything on the web and reporting our test
results on our Web site and through our software. We are testing
primarily for safety, security, and online nuisances, not for potentially
offensive content. So please don't misconstrue our 'green' safety ratings
as an endorsement of a Web site's specific content or general subject
matter, or as a general quality rating of the Web site. In particular,
this means that many adult sites, which some people may find to have
objectionable content, will receive green ratings if they pass our safety
tests.

That said, we will give red ratings to sites that depict child
pornography and/or authentic sexual assault if users bring them to our
attention.
 
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