1. SiteAdvisor - privacy policy change
    2. SiteAdvisor - tells you what websites are not safe

SiteAdvisor - privacy policy change

Notes from ClifNotes, Sep 2007, permalink Security Tools

McAfee's popular web browser add-on called SiteAdvisor is a great tool that I use to help me search the web safely. However, they recently announced a privacy policy change that had many people scared to use it. I have checked into the change. I'm not afraid of the anonymous statistics that they store about my web surfing.

When you use a search engine in your web browser, SiteAdvisor places red, yellow, or green icons beside the sites it knows about to help you make informed decisions about where it's safe to go online. It also includes a colored button in your web browser to tell you about the website you are currently browsing. (available for Internet Explorer and Firefox)

I still recommend this software. It's especially valuable for new Internet users.

Update - SA's privacy policy changed
From the SiteAdvisor blog: Source

Here's what's changed: Under the new privacy policy, we can now share these anonymous statistics with partners. Examples of these statistics would be the number of active SiteAdvisor users in a day, or the number of times users 'mouse over' SiteAdvisor's safe search ratings.


Here's what hasn't changed: We do not collect any personally identifiable information from SiteAdvisor users, whether the user is in the PIP or not. The PIP remains purely optional and by default, SiteAdvisor users do not participate. Users who opt-in to the PIP can still leave at any time by clicking on the settings menu found on the McAfee SiteAdvisor logo.

Quote from the website
SiteAdvisor helps protect you from all kinds of Web-based security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser-based attacks, phishing, online fraud and identity theft.

SiteAdvisor Website

SiteAdvisor - tells you what websites are not safe

Website - Freeware
reviewed by ClifNotes, Jan 2006
comments?

Notes from Clif
In the last issue of my newsletter, I happened to mention a blog from a service called SiteAdvisor. Two of you wrote in to ask me if it was safe. I've done some research and I will start recommending this very good service. In fact, I'm using it now myself.

The people who wrote in are correct in being concerned about this service. SiteAdvisor is an Internet Explorer toolbar and a Firefox extension you can download and install for free. SiteAdvisor tracks your web surfing and in return, they offer advice about the websites that appear in your web searches and the pages you actually load. I've been assured that this "tracking" by SiteAdvisor is completely anonymous and that it will never be sold to third party advertisers. This means that they can see where I'm surfing but they can't tell who I am when they are looking at their records.

Let's take a simple Google search for an example of what SiteAdvisor can do. Type in the word "screensaver" in Google and you'll see the screen below.

Screenshot - searching for screensavers

Expand picture

Do you see the red "x" beside many of the entries. Notice that the entries for Screensaver.com are marked. I can confirm that this is a bad website. I wrote an article about it last year that warns people away from it. It gives me a bad feeling to see that Screensaver.com is a "sponsored" link at Google. The problem is that all the other search engines will give you nearly the same "sponsored" links. Who can you trust? SiteAdvisor can help us with that problem.

SiteAdvisor places red, yellow, or green icons beside the sites it knows about to help you make informed decisions about where you want to go online. It also includes a colored button in your web browser to tell you about the website you are currently browsing.

Right now this service is in a testing phase, but you can still try it out to see if you like it. I'm hoping that SiteAdvisor will continue to offer this service for free, once they are finished testing it.

Quote from SiteAdvisor.com
SiteAdvisor helps protect you from all kinds of Web-based security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser-based attacks, phishing, online fraud and identity theft.


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