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 The McAfee SiteAdvisor Website showing the review for Wikipedia | |
| Developer(s) | McAfee |
|---|---|
| Initial release | April 2006 |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Website | siteadvisor.comarchive |
McAfee WebAdvisor, previously known asMcAfee SiteAdvisor, is a service that reports on the safety ofweb sites by crawling the web and testing the sites it finds for malware and spam. A browser extension can show these ratings onhyperlinks such as on web search results.[1]
The service was originally developed by SiteAdvisor, Inc, an MIT startup[2] first introduced atCodeCon on February 10, 2006,[3] and later acquired byMcAfee[4] on April 5, 2006.
Prior to mid-October 2014, the functionality of SiteAdvisor could be accessed by submitting a URL to the website athttps://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/, but can now also be accessed through a downloadable Browser Plugin.[5][citation needed]
Sites are rated in levels ofSafe (green tick),Suspicious (yellow exclamation mark) andUnsafe (red"X").
Additional features include:
McAfee WebAdvisor is available as a free download on McAfee's website[1] as well as bundled with McAfee Antivirus Plus, McAfee Internet Security, McAfee Total Protection, McAfee McAfee+ Premium, McAfee+ Advanced, McAfee+ Ultimate, and McAfee Business Protection.
Orther features of McAfee WebAdvisor include:
In March 2006, McAfee launched aJavaScript-basedquiz which has users pick between sites rated as safe and unsafe.[6]
Aflash-based memory training game called "WebQuest" was launched around 2007.[7]
SiteAdvisor has published various reports regarding online threats such astyposquatting, where mistyped domains may lead to sites ranging from harmless pay-per-click and domain parking sites to pornographic and malware sites.[8]
The very nature of SiteAdvisor and the long periods between site crawls mean that even if the SiteAdvisor tests were 100% accurate a Green rating offers no guarantee of safety. Malicious code and browser exploits often spread fast over large numbers of websites,[9] meaning a Green rating may not be up to date and may provide a false sense of security.
To resolve this McAfee WebAdvisor now uses McAfee's Smart AI technology[10] to analyze site content before a website is opened.
McAfee SiteAdvisor now makes use of theTrustedSource website reputation organisation, to act as something like a 'cloud' intelligence software to get the most up-to-date information on websites as possible, very similar to McAfee's Active Protection (Artemis) system.[citation needed] The details of this system are not known.
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