SiteAdvisor Plus: Adding Teeth to the Web’s Most Popular Safe Search Tool
Posted by Shane Keats on November 6, 2006 09:19 AM
We have some big news to share today. McAfee is launching an enhanced, premium version of our safe search tool called SiteAdvisor Plus.
SiteAdvisor Plus extends and enhances our core safe search and safe surfing functionality in three ways: by adding link checking to instant messages and e-mail, by adding a protected mode that shields PCs from interacting with risky sites, and by adding real-time anti-phishing protection.
What’s New
Link Checker: McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus checks links embedded in e-mail and instant messages, warning consumers before they make a bad click decision. Worldwide, more than 170 billion e-mails and more than 14 billion instant messages are sent per day. In today’s world of drive-by attacks, during which a single click can ruin a computer, it’s important for consumers to know in advance whether a link contained in an e-mail or IM is safe or not.
McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus supports a broad range of instant messaging and e-mail platforms including Yahoo! Messenger (Y!M), Windows Live Messenger (MSM), Google Talk, Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Live Mail (Hotmail), and Gmail. Support for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and AOL Mail is under development.
Protected Mode: Protected Mode enforces SiteAdvisor’s safety ratings by redirecting consumers to a safe page anytime their computer is about to interact with a risky site, whether through searching, browsing, instant messaging or e-mailing. This feature provides critical protection for heavy Internet users, households that share computers with younger or less Web-savvy users, or anyone who desires “load and go” protection. Protected Mode is password protected, enabling parents or other computer administrators to control this feature.
Protected Mode grays out risky results
Advanced Phishing/Scam Detection: McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus combines advanced, real-time “phishing” detection with its one-of-a-kind site database to detect and provide early warnings against scam sites that can compromise consumers’ identities and ruin their computers. This is a critical benefit, since scam and phishing sites now use increasingly sophisticated technology and social engineering tactics to fool even the most savvy consumers.
Real-time anti-phishing uses SiteAdvisor's white list to improve accuracy
How Much Does It Cost?
SiteAdvisor Plus offers a household pack (for 3 computers) for $49.99 and a 1-user option for $24.99. Both subscriptions are good for a year and include all the new features.
Where Can You Buy It?
SiteAdvisor Plus is available on the McAfee site starting Tuesday, November 7.
What’s Next for SiteAdvisor Plus?
Adding link checking support for AIM is a top short-term priority. Integration with the AIM client presents some significant engineering challenges and we felt it was better to offer instant messaging protection now to the tens of millions of consumers who use other popular instant messaging clients rather than wait.
Also a top priority: support for Firefox. Again, we made the call that it was better to offer SiteAdvisor Plus to our many Internet Explorer users who can benefit from added protection now.
What’s Staying the Same
SiteAdvisor’s basic version will remain free and will keep the same features it currently has. Our commitment to accuracy will continue as will our transparency about our test results. More than 250 million times per day, McAfee customers ask for our site ratings to help them make better Web safety decisions. We’ve worked hard to earn that trust and reliance and will continue to work to make it safer to search, browse and transact on the Web.
Comments
Really wish McAffe would reduce the size of the "McAffee SiteAdvisior" button used on browers toolbar.
Takes up way too much toolbar space.
Thanks,
John
Posted by: John Mattson | November 6, 2006 05:46 PM
Hi, I downloaded the trial version. How do I change/completely remove the password used for protected mode ?
Posted by: Yusuf | November 9, 2006 12:01 AM
I don't use Instant Messaging, but I'm emailing all the time.
Good idea that Siteadvisor extends warnings to cover mail as well.
However, searchengines aren't the only sites offering long list of links.
Many websites also has a link-section, that grows longer and longer.
Such links are of course carefully chosen, and it is easy to check for dead links.
But it is not so easy to detect, if the sites content has changed completely.
An example: I recently discovered that the Official Site of the author Brian W. Aldiss
had been highjacked recently by a typosquatter. (A legal scam but still a scam.)
(His webmaster: "Someone hijacked www.brianwaldiss.com when it came up for renewal and my ISP failed to renew, despite standing instructions and despite having renewed annually for the last 5 or 6 years...")
It would be very nice if Siteadvisor eventually covered all links
regardless of where they appeared...
Posted by: Mads Dam | November 14, 2006 10:14 AM
Wow, I think it`s great! Please, make it usable for Firefox-users!
Posted by: Johnny Dao | November 20, 2006 05:24 PM
A few complaints about this but first some background:
This elf maintains the very popular website (at Christmastime anyway :) EmailSanta.com. The site is mirrored at ChristmasSantaClaus.com. In checking my logfiles over a week ago I first discovered SiteAdvisor and, to my horror, that both sites had received a "red X of death". The reason? In part, I had 2 links to 3rd party sites that contained mal-ware. While I had posted those links from what I believed to be a reliable source of children's software, I should have vetted them myself. Fair enough.
However, because the site is MIRRORED it looks like SiteAdvisor did a vicious circle on the 2 of them. Complaint #2: Its been well over a week since I removed all "non-green" 3rd party links to the site. However, still no change in the status of the 2 sites.
VERY POOR McAfee!! I don't expect changes overnight but there is no excuse for it taking this long for a bot to recognize that links have been removed!
And, for the record, it is a point of honour that EmailSanta.com has never, EVER spammed, associated with or *intentionally* distributed malware (just the thot that it might have happened sickens us).
I guess SiteAdvisor will be on Santa's Naughty List until McAfee can improve it.
Posted by: kringleclaus | December 6, 2006 09:36 PM
I wish McAfee would make the free SiteAdvisor usable for anti-phishing.
Or at the very least, make it plainly obvious(in big fat letters- no fine print) that SiteAdvisor Free DOES NOT PROTECT from phishing.
It is dishonest, in this age of phishing, to allow people to believe that a protection product does something it doesnt.
Posted by: Peter | December 7, 2006 02:41 PM
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the feedback. We'll certainly consider it. BTW, we discuss anti-phishing several places on our site.
Our FAQ:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/press/faqs.html#q8
Our support pages:
http://support.siteadvisor.com/support-center/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=131
And some blog entries. Example:
http://blog.siteadvisor.com/2006/07/phishing_express.shtml
Posted by: Shane Keats | December 13, 2006 11:48 AM
Hi,
I really think you need to tweak your algorithms for deciding when a site is red, there are too many perfectly respectable and legimate sites that are redlisted because of a single link to another red listed site.
Surely your algorithms have to be clever enough to spot a site which is in a bad neighbourhood and one which has a single link to another red site, and can't you make the user reviews count for more, if there are 4 user reviews all saying, no this is a good site you've made a mistake, shouldn't you take them into account more?
The sites I have noticed that are red and shouldn't be are:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/wsu.org.nz
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/waikato.ac.nz/
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/linux.net.nz
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/resene.co.nz
Other than the occasional unfair rating I really love your product and recommend it to all my family and friends.
cheers
Posted by: Stuart Young | December 14, 2006 03:59 AM
I own a number of websites, and my first thought about this product is that it could probably be easily adapted to check them for malware links. Particularly for checking directories, which tend to have more links than it's possible to check manually.
I want to provide my users with the safest possible browsing experience, but websites that I link to can be hacked and turned into malware hosts and I may not know about it soon enough. If SiteAdvisor is spidering websites regularly, how about a service that will check over a particular website on a set schedule (weekly would be good), and email status reports to the customer. I would want to know immediately about any red reports, and periodically about any yellow ones, for instance.
So how about it? As it stands Site Advisor Pro doesn't tempt me, because it doesn't work with FireFox yet (have I got that right?). But I'd be interested in something with these features, at the right price.
Posted by: ros | September 27, 2007 02:13 PM