McAfee SiteAdvisor Review
October 9th, 2009 
Posted in McAfee Site Advisor – A Red, Yellow and Green Light Approach
Imagine if you just had someone there to tell you which websites were bad or not. You probably wouldn’t like someone looking over your shoulder during every click of the mouse, but there are software tools available to do most of this work for you, and one that I use everyday is actually FREE. Of course you could pay if you want the enhanced features, but the free version is quite adequate if you pay attention to the results. This tool is called SiteAdvisor from McAfee. Anybody who knows me knows that I don’t use McAfee, or even Norton for that matter when it comes to antivirus or antispyware products, because I am a staunch supporter of ESET Nod32 Antivirus products. But this tool is an exception! SiteAdvisor can be downloaded from http://www.siteadvisor.com. SiteAdvisor allows you to click with confidence because they are in the business of testing websites for spyware, spam and scams so you can search, surf and shop more safely.
Basically, SiteAdvisor software adds safety ratings to your browser and search engine results. They actually provide detailed information about each website they have tested, but I have come to trust this tool and feel comfortable enough to skip the reading (sometimes I get lazy) and just note the Red, Yellow and Green checkmarks next to each search result. In short, Green should be OK to click on, but I stay away from Yellow and Red sites. It is that easy! If you feel you just have to click on a known bad website, at least get your shields up first!
As a PC Tech, I find myself using SiteAdvisor to checkout software and suspicious files I think might be malicious, but need confirmation before I nuke them. I just copy-and-paste the folder or file name into my search engine (Google is my weapon of choice), and if I notice a lot of “Red” in the search results, there is a good chance the file is bad. At that point, I will try to find the most relevant “Green” result to find out more specific information. Don’t click on the “Red or Yellow” results for this information as that would be defeating the whole purpose of using this tool. One side-note, I prefer to do my googling with Mozilla Firefox.
Of course McAfee’s SiteAdvisor website can provide much more information about using their software than I can, so I won’t try to duplicate their efforts here. I just wanted to point you to this awesome tool so you can add it to your arsenal. Of course for those of you already using a McAfee Internet Security product may already have this, but I believe the majority of users out there are still using Norton (arghhhhh!!). Go ESET Nod32!!!
So download this tool today at http://www.siteadvisor.com and start using it ASAP. It is easier to just avoid the bad sites than jamming-on your brakes when a bug suddenly crosses your path…and then it may be too late.
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