Yahoo, just like Google, has decided that they need to start taking steps to protect users from malicious search results that they might be serving up. They’re calling the new feature SearchScan, and it is powered by McAfee’s SiteAdvisor. You can actually get a SiteAdvisor browser add-on yourself that will do almost the same thing, but the people who are actually aware of SiteAdvisor’s existence are probably not the ones that need it the most. Yahoo’s implementation, on the other hand, will reach out to anyone that performs searches on their site!
As seen in the screenshot above the warning that Yahoo displays is a lot less discreet than Google’s, although Google does take users to a warning page before letting them actually visit the site. Plus I found that Yahoo was actually flagging more sites than Google. Many of the ones Yahoo/McAfee deems dangerous seem to slide by whatever kind of detection system Google is using.
What’s really nice is that Yahoo not only checks to see whether a site contains malicious downloads, but it also flags those that sell your email address. Here are the three different warnings that you’ll possibly see in the search results:
- Browser Exploits — These are sites that can stealthily harm a user’s computer or install malware simply by visiting the site. Beginning today, any such sites or pages included in McAfee’s data will be removed from search results automatically.
- Dangerous Downloads — SearchScan will display warnings next to search results for sites that offer potentially dangerous software, such as viruses, spyware or adware. Users often may be unaware that these can be passed along with the screensavers, games and other software downloads.
- Unsolicited Email — SearchScan will alert users to scanned sites that send unsolicited emails or inappropriately share email addresses with third parties.
There are a few SearchScan settings that you can configure as well. Optionally you can disable the service all together, or you can even have it remove any results that have been flagged by McAfee for one of the above reasons. Yup, you can have it hide the malicious sites so that you never even have to see them.
Kudos to Yahoo for adding this much needed system, and now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that people actually listen to the warnings.
Love the idea and the implementation. But McAfee? Hm…
Yeah I saw that over the weekend, it’s pretty cool idea love it.
Well Yahoo! is using [en.wikipedia.org] which was an MIT project but McAfee bought it.
If they know the search result is dangerous then why don’t they delete the site from their index? Seems logical to me.
Why take away the chance to be able to click on a dangerous link?
You’re basically taking away the user’s free will and conditioning him to only see “good” things/sites.
Thereby changing his state of mind and thought = brainwashing.
Yahoo is doing the right thing. Awesome idea.
This is a very interesting post. Also, it gives me the opportunity to ask (myself) if there is any sort of “Google addiction” which would lead – as obviously as obvious could be – one’s mind to systematically think “Google” when thinking “search”.
This Yahoo! Search initiative is IMO an excellent step, and at this point I’m hesitating between installing SiteAdvisor plug-in/extension and changing my default search engine to Yahoo! Search.
Sometimes I wonder if Google, in its cool attitudes, is not omitting essential security behaviors. I think Yahoo! more generally speaking is to be reconsidered in my narrow mind. Reconsidered in a more respectful way, that is.
Does anyone know if the SiteAdvisor browser add-on is only available for Internet Explorer? I went to McAfee’s Site Advisor website and only found the download link for Internet Explorer (it only says about IE, no Firefox).
Brain washing because you’re not allowing users to download virus and malware? That’s crazy talk!
The link isn’t dangerous because of the content the user would see but because the site could do harm to the user (identity theft) or to the users computer (viruses, spyware, etc).
At the very least search engines should provides users an option to automatically filter dangerous links from the results and that option should be ON by default. Safety and computer security shouldn’t be on an opt-in approach.
Yeah, that was my initial concern as well. But McAfee acquired this service, and so it’s not all bad. Plus, if Yahoo is the one doing the processing I don’t have to worry about the performance hit on my own PC.
They could, but there’s really no guarantee that everything on the site is dangerous. Plus people who go scouring around for warez would probably run into a lot of these dangerous sites, but want to proceed anyway.
If you decide to install the plugin then you’ll have this feature on all the major search engines. I like the idea of Yahoo integrating it though because then my computer doesn’t have to do the extra processing.
It’s available for Firefox as well:
[siteadvisor.com]
I think Yahoo is taking the correct route though. They are warning users of the link while offering the option to remove the dangerous sites all together from search results. It’s a happy middle ground for me.