Make Your Searches Safer

This I like. Two new free services, SiteAdvisor and Scandoo, take a new approach to making your Internet experience safer.

My colleague Narasu wrote about Scandoo after they were here yesterday, and Bob McMillian covered SiteAdvisor when they first came out in March.

But I'm going to push them both a little more because I like them. And because I can.

Both services use automatic crawlers to scour Web sites, looking for viruses, spyware and adware. Then, when you run a search, you'll see a little icon to the left (with Scandoo) or to the right (with SiteAdvisor) of every search result indicating whether they think the site is safe, has questionable downloads, or if they haven't checked that one yet. You'll get a little pop-up with more info on the rating if you mouseover the icon.



It's a simple, impossible-to-miss safety indicator dropped where most of us start our surfing.

SiteAdvisor works with Google, MSN and Yahoo searches. You need a browser plugin (for IE and Firefox) to use it. To use Scandoo you start at their Web site and enter your search term. Scandoo will have browser plugins shortly, and will work with Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask shortly. Right now it just works with Google.

In addition to warning about viruses and the like, Scandoo also lets you filter by categories like Hate and Discrimination, Weapons, Illegal Behavior, etc. You'll get a red warning if a search result falls under one of those categories, but nothing is actually blocked.

SiteAdvisor does more site testing. It checks out which sites that site links to, and whether the site sends an inordinate amount of spam when you give it your email address. Since it's a plugin, SiteAdvisor also adds a little colored box to your browser indicating whether the site you're currently viewing is ok or not.

Clearly I'm a fan, but take a look and see what you think. Grab SiteAdvisor (recently bought by McAfee) or head to Scandoo.