McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

Great news & congratulation. As a SiteAdvisor user I hope that you will be bringing innovative new features to this useful product in the future.

I'm going to wait and see what happens before I make my judgement - but I guess it's better McAfee than Norton.

The current team behind Siteadvisor will still be the same?

It's not a "Thanks for the money McAfee, have fun with our project while we retire on our recently bought island", I hope?

I hope that the company continues intact, just better funded. Congrats ...

Gee, I should have paid more attention. Published on 3 Apr 06 this NetworkWorld article gave a us a little notice!

"Acquisition hunger

Separately, McAfee CEO George Samenuk last week said the vendor is on the prowl to buy security companies with technology that can be quickly integrated with McAfee's products. Areas of interest include wireless security and safer Internet surfing for users. The acquisitions will be wholly in cash, and the deal sizes could range from $20 million to $500 million, said Samenuk, who added that the company has more than $1.2 billion in cash and is debt-free."

See here for full text -- http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/040306-mcafee.html

I still worry about "who watches the watchmen", especially now that there are more commerical interests involved.

SiteAdvisor is not as transparent as it should be, especially for webmasters who do not want their site crawled. I'm not able to find information on SiteAdvisor about their crawler or more importantly how to block it. The information is probably "somewhere" but I can't get easy access to it. For instance searching google for "robots.txt" on siteadvisor.com doesn't produce any relevant results (it only has one result, and that one is the the comment I posted on a previous post!)

Also, SiteAdvisor isn't updated as often as it should so there are issues of relevancy to iron out as well.

I will hold out and say that this is a positive move for both McAfee and us in this reviewing community called Site Advisor. This is a great service and another layer Netziens have to avoid bad websites and their trappings. Good luck and I am onboard for the long haul.

I'm actually sad to see this happen. For untold numbers of years, I used to be a avid McAfee/Network Associates supporter. But with them changing their anti-virus updates from freeware to 'paidware' and then the recent fiasco about a anti-virus update deleting core files, I have gotten rid of all my McAfee products in favor of AVG.

I just hope they continue to offer a free version of SiteAdvisor!!!!

Oh well, things change :-(

Hi! I am actually a Technical employee for McAfee (administrator for their support forums). I was suprised to hear of this. I cannot speak for McAfee in any way when it comes to its plans, however I can say that after using the software for less than a week, I am extremely impressed by the quality of what you have produced. Congrats, and I HOPE that whatever the future holds for SiteAdvisor, that the community here will still play a major part in it.

Call me cynical (and I have yet to make up my mind on this acquisition fully, this is my immediate response). McAfee has not provided the best protective software in the market by any means. I am therefore interested (and would like for someone on the Site Advisor team to answer the question). How is McAfee the best choice for the future of Site Advisor? Also I am concerned with the possible detachment of the original team because of this acquisition. I will continue to use this extension, and will make a decision on this merger as time goes on and I can experience it under the new ownership.

Awaiting response thanks,
BJ

The jury is still out on this takeover (merger?). I recall years ago when another company acquired Wordperfect. Shortly afterward the tech support went to zero.

As a user of SiteAdvisor, I'm crossing my fingers that this product IS improved. Only time will tell.

In any event, congrat's to all and keep up the good work.

Hi, gr8 news...Itz raly gr8 move by Mcafee..i'm happy the software still free...I like this software very much..Kepe up the gud job...

Well it has been ages since I used a McAfee product. I stopped due to poor customer support, frustrating/annoying web site navigation and a company that seemed to be more interested in dealing with the corporate environment. I hope that SiteAdvisor does not become a watered down product unless one pays a yearly subscription.

Bummer, dudes. Glad you could cash out, but this is bad news for your potential users.

1) Your visibility into user URL visits will now no longer have your ethical stance protecting it.

2) Your stuff will only be offered in a performance-sapping and less than effective bundle with the kind of antivirus software that's worse than your average rootkit.

I've just mailed everyone to whom I'd recommended SiteAdvisor to give them the bad news.

Still, it could be worse. You could have sold to Symantec, which would have ensured the death of your entire code base and cancellation of the service within a year at most...

Damn, I was pushing hard to convince Google to buy you guys out... but I suppose Google could always buy McAfee. :)

I'm late to this news, as I'd not updated my Firefox extension until today. Personally, I'm a little depressed. I'm not a huge fan of McAfee so I'm a bit nervous of where this will lead (paid-only versions of SiteAdvisor?)

Now for my completely shallow quibbles: I'm not a fan of the new colors, especially the new green. I'm particularly not a fan of adding "McAfee" to the SiteAdvisor button in the status bar, as it unecessarily widens the button. And didja have to make it bold? /rant

SiteAdvisor ruined by McAfee, hard to read colours, adverts, and a new paid version coming out. They're not quite as bad as Norton, but they're getting there. SiteAdvisor should go back to being independent, they worked better that way.