We've spent time recommending add-ons such as McAfee SiteAdvisor or TrustPilot which will give you information about a website, before you visit. Run a Google search and see the usual results. With McAfee SiteAdvisor, you'll also see a traffic light approach to web safety, as voted by end users. A rogue site maybe flagged up with a red warning and you can find more info about why it's rogue on the McAfee website. Problem is, this only works if the website has been visited and rated by a user. If not, you'll be the first to try the site and could end up on a scamming website and end up having to warn other users.

AVG LinkScanner 8.5 uses a different approach. It's a free download and was first released as part of AVG AntiVirus 8. When you run a Google or Yahoo search, each search result is pro-actively scanned by LinkScanner to see if it can determine whether the destination site is rogue or legitimate. Problem with this approach is that it can take time to examine each website, so will slow your web browsing experience.

AVG LinkScanner link.

22 Apr 2009