These Add-ons can warn you of risks but do not guarantee completely safe surfing. Nothing does! It is intended to outline a collection of Freeware in the near future which will reduce risks to near zero.
McAfee's Site Advisor is an add-on for your Browser signalling by a green, yellow, or red warning system whether a site is safe, risky or dangerous. It seemed to be good but updating to ver 2.8 caused problems for some and then it was also revealed that sites were often not reassessed for up to a year. A safe site could easily become dangerous in that period. Time for a change! Firefox add-ons supports WOT (Web of Trust) which does a similar job better. Go to http://tinyurl.com/4o8gxg The "download" is for Firefox but below it you are asked if you would like it for Internet Explorer. Running both WOT and Site Advisor together at present seems to work OK.
No sooner had this report been written than another "Surf safely" program appeared. Link Extend http://www.linkextend.com/ promises much and looks good, but it is too early to recommend it. Mozilla supports it as an add-on at http://tinyurl.com/caogq4 and it is also available for IE at http://tinyurl.com/adaloe
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Web Page Designer Free April 9, 2009
Removal of Windows SP2 updates April 4, 2009
Genealogy April 2, 2009
Newbies, mice, buttons and Menus April 1, 2009
Registry Backups with ERUNT April 1, 2009
Conficker Virus (worm) April 1, 2009
Open Topic March 31, 2009
Safe Surfing March 30, 2009
TinyURL and LongURL March 30, 2009
Browser Security. March 27, 2009
Have you got a favourite Game? March 27, 2009
Acronis True Image 2009 25% off March 26, 2009
HOW TO USE WIRELESS HOTSPOTS? March 25, 2009
Do you read the EULA when you install a program? March 24, 2009
Email tips 4 March 17, 2009
Picasa March 13, 2009
Titan backup free March 7, 2009
NZ education for Kids March 5, 2009
200 Free Online Classes to Learn Anything March 5, 2009
XP Service Pack 3 March 2, 2009
Who Said Photos Never Lie March 1, 2009
Open Topic March 1, 2009
Should I get external hard drive? February 27, 2009
Free Utilities for MS Office 7 February 25, 2009
Email tips, 1, 2 and 3 February 24, 2009
Surf Safely February 22, 2009
Good Newsletter and Information Sites December 4, 2008
Australian site for Broadband Speed November 3, 2008
Internet Speedtest October 30, 2008
Essentially New Zealand October 25, 2008
Genealogy Program October 24, 2008
Websites for basic and advanced computer use instruction October 23, 2008
Copying DVDs October 20, 2008
Recycle death computers!! October 1, 2008
Picasa - Updating The Database September 30, 2008
File Associations September 26, 2008
Search for other Blogs September 25, 2008
Benefits of a gmail address August 4, 2008
Share computer know-how, prevent and solve problems, give advice, relieve - or share!- computer frustrations, publicise advances, freeware and legal bargains. Email contact: landlines@xtra.co.nz
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landlines@xtra.co.nz
An invitation is then offered via google to which you should reply promptly. Once this is done and you sign in when you use the blog you can Post questions, information, suggestions for using the Blog and comments freely. Porn, offensive language, abuse and pirated software are unacceptable.
All degrees of competence and incompetence are welcome and the only silly question is the one that is not asked. No questions = no answers. The Blog is what the users make it, non-use and it becomes useless.
New Users: How to use this Blog
Most recent Posts (original messages) are at the top.
Previous ones:- click on Older Posts at the bottom of the page. Previous months are in Blog Archive in left panel. Click down arrow.
If you wish to see what others have said or have something you also wish to add to a Post, click on Comments at the bottom of the Post. If Author's rights have not been obtained it is necessary to type in the graphic letters below your comment to prove you are human and not Spam. To Post a message, Click the New Post tab near the top of the page. If you have a problem using the blog which is not covered here please email: landlines@xtra.co.nz
How to ask for help
It is essential to keep potential helpers’ interest alive, thinking that this might be something they know. A Headline “Help!!!!” followed by “I wasn’t doing anything different when I pressed this key and the screen went blue and a message came up. What do I do?” is a big turn off.
Here’s a guide.
Headline: be as specific and brief - three or four words - as possible e.g. Firefox won’t open.
Next, brief information about your system if you know it. E.g. I have a Dell laptop with 500 MB of Ram and a 500GB HD, use Vista Home and Firefox ver.3. Your potential helpers have eliminated from their minds a lot of things they know nothing about and are more interested. But, you say, I know nothing about what’s inside the laptop, or programs’ versions. OK tell what you do know, OR download and install Belarc Advisor a free small program that will tell you all you need to know about your computer.Get it anyway, so click the name now
Next describe your problem, e.g. I click the Firefox icon on my desktop to open Firefox, but now it doesn’t appear, only a small box that has a tiny Firefox emblem in the top left corner of the screen. Someone will be bound to know how to stretch a window by dragging a corner.
Previous ones:- click on Older Posts at the bottom of the page. Previous months are in Blog Archive in left panel. Click down arrow.
If you wish to see what others have said or have something you also wish to add to a Post, click on Comments at the bottom of the Post. If Author's rights have not been obtained it is necessary to type in the graphic letters below your comment to prove you are human and not Spam. To Post a message, Click the New Post tab near the top of the page. If you have a problem using the blog which is not covered here please email: landlines@xtra.co.nz
How to ask for help
It is essential to keep potential helpers’ interest alive, thinking that this might be something they know. A Headline “Help!!!!” followed by “I wasn’t doing anything different when I pressed this key and the screen went blue and a message came up. What do I do?” is a big turn off.
Here’s a guide.
Headline: be as specific and brief - three or four words - as possible e.g. Firefox won’t open.
Next, brief information about your system if you know it. E.g. I have a Dell laptop with 500 MB of Ram and a 500GB HD, use Vista Home and Firefox ver.3. Your potential helpers have eliminated from their minds a lot of things they know nothing about and are more interested. But, you say, I know nothing about what’s inside the laptop, or programs’ versions. OK tell what you do know, OR download and install Belarc Advisor a free small program that will tell you all you need to know about your computer.Get it anyway, so click the name now
Next describe your problem, e.g. I click the Firefox icon on my desktop to open Firefox, but now it doesn’t appear, only a small box that has a tiny Firefox emblem in the top left corner of the screen. Someone will be bound to know how to stretch a window by dragging a corner.
Blog index
Web Page Designer Free April 9, 2009
Removal of Windows SP2 updates April 4, 2009
Genealogy April 2, 2009
Newbies, mice, buttons and Menus April 1, 2009
Registry Backups with ERUNT April 1, 2009
Conficker Virus (worm) April 1, 2009
Open Topic March 31, 2009
Safe Surfing March 30, 2009
TinyURL and LongURL March 30, 2009
Browser Security. March 27, 2009
Have you got a favourite Game? March 27, 2009
Acronis True Image 2009 25% off March 26, 2009
HOW TO USE WIRELESS HOTSPOTS? March 25, 2009
Do you read the EULA when you install a program? March 24, 2009
Email tips 4 March 17, 2009
Picasa March 13, 2009
Titan backup free March 7, 2009
NZ education for Kids March 5, 2009
200 Free Online Classes to Learn Anything March 5, 2009
XP Service Pack 3 March 2, 2009
Who Said Photos Never Lie March 1, 2009
Open Topic March 1, 2009
Should I get external hard drive? February 27, 2009
Free Utilities for MS Office 7 February 25, 2009
Email tips, 1, 2 and 3 February 24, 2009
Surf Safely February 22, 2009
Good Newsletter and Information Sites December 4, 2008
Australian site for Broadband Speed November 3, 2008
Internet Speedtest October 30, 2008
Essentially New Zealand October 25, 2008
Genealogy Program October 24, 2008
Websites for basic and advanced computer use instruction October 23, 2008
Copying DVDs October 20, 2008
Recycle death computers!! October 1, 2008
Picasa - Updating The Database September 30, 2008
File Associations September 26, 2008
Search for other Blogs September 25, 2008
Benefits of a gmail address August 4, 2008
1 comment:
Update in Windows Secrets 5th March 2009
New Firefox extension beats McAfee SiteAdvisor
By Ian "Gizmo" Richards
As Windows Secrets contributing editor Mark Edwards reported in his Feb. 12 Top Story, serious doubts have arisen about the accuracy of McAfee's popular SiteAdvisor security service, which is designed to help you avoid hostile Web sites.
I'll tell you about a free SiteAdvisor alternative that offers more reliable safety ratings — and many more features, to boot.
An aggregation of site-rating services
LinkExtend is a free Firefox extension that works similarly to SiteAdvisor, with one big difference. The browser add-on uses scoring from eight site-rating services, only one of which is SiteAdvisor. In addition to security ratings, LinkExtend tells you whether sites are suitable for family viewing and also gives you an indication of each site's ethics, popularity, and more.
LinkExtend is available only as an add-on for Firefox, so Internet Explorer users are out of luck. The fact that the program is available from the official Firefox add-on site is comforting; you can be assured that the download contains no spyware or malware. Equally comforting is the fact that LinkExtend is an open-source app, so the program code is available for all to see. And if you want even more comfort, you'll notice that users give LinkExtend 5 stars, which is the highest-possible rating.
Installation is as simple as clicking the Add to Firefox button. The file is only 433KB, so it should download quickly. Once installed, restart Firefox to activate LinkExtend.
The LinkExtend toolbar, which slows your computer and should be disabled, adds many security features to the Firefox browser.
The search box on the left side of the toolbar uses the Ixquick metasearch engine that combines the results from many of the major search engines. This search function has some nifty features for power searches, but frankly — for normal day-to-day searching — I prefer Google.
Fortunately, using Google is not a problem, because LinkExtend also annotates Google search results just as it does Ixquick results. However, LinkExtend doesn't work with Yahoo Search or Windows Live Search.
Deciphering the toolbar's site ratings
The icons on the LinkExtend toolbar indicate the safety rating for the site you're currently viewing. The rating is based on information provided by Web of Trust (WOT), Web Security Guard, Browser Defender, RGguard, Norton Safe Web, Compete, Google Safe Browsing, and McAfee SiteAdvisor. These are combined in the following manner:
Low Risk — No service found the site to be unsafe, or only one of the services found it to be a medium risk.
Medium Risk — At least two services found the site to be a medium risk, or only one service found it to be a high risk.
High Risk — At least two services found the site to be a high risk.
Unknown — No service has rated the safety of the site.
The separate KidSafe rating utilizes information from Alexa, WOT, and the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA). This rating is obtained thusly:
Safe — No service found the site to be unsafe for children.
Suspicious — At least one service found the site to be partially unsafe for kids.
Unsafe — At least one service found the site to be unsafe for kids.
Unknown — No service has rated the site for child safety.
A similar approach is used for the site-ethics rating, which is based on user ratings obtained from Scryve, Corporate Critic, and Knowmore.
Other features of the toolbar include a rating of the site's importance, based on Google PageRank and a site-traffic index generated from statistics collected by Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, and Statbrain. Clicking the Visited button shows the last time you visited the site.
The last item on the toolbar is the Site Tools feature. Clicking this shows a wealth of information about the site you're visiting, including user reviews from AboutUs, StumbleUpon, WOT, and Xom Reviews.
Improve the safety of your Web searches
The real power of LinkExtend lies not in its toolbar but in the annotations the program provides for your search results. Most of the information available from the LinkExtend toolbar for the current site is also available in the annotated results returned from search engines. That's a wealth of information — more than enough to help you decide whether a site is safe to visit.
To the right of each search result, you'll see the LinkExtend site ratings. Because the ratings are based on information from eight different services rather than from a single rating service, the indicator is more reliable than one from SiteAdvisor or any other single site-rating product.
LinkExtend also adds a thumbnail image of each site to the search results. Some users will find this useful, but for me the preview is of limited value, and it slows your computer.
Four reservations and a head-to-head comparison
Before you install LinkExtend, one of my reservations is that it's a brand-new product currently at version 1.0, so glitches should be expected. Indeed, I found a couple, but they were, thankfully, very minor.
A second reservation relates to the LinkExtend search toolbar. It is undoubtedly useful, but for me, it's not useful enough to warrant the space the toolbar takes up in my browser window. To turn off the toolbar, click View, Toolbars and uncheck the box for LinkExtend. Hiding the toolbar doesn't stop LinkExtend from annotating your Google search results, and that, after all, is the main benefit of the product — not the search toolbar.
My third reservation is that LinkExtend slows down your searches somewhat. With site thumbnails enabled, the slowdown was considerable. With that feature disabled, the slowdown was much less noticeable and — on my setup — quite acceptable. However, the results you experience may differ, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and your PC.
Finally, and most importantly, there's a question as to whether site safety ratings based on eight services are actually more accurate than those based on a single service. They should be, but in the absence of scientific tests, there's certainly room for doubt.
In my casual tests, SiteAdvisor and LinkExtend were in agreement about the safety of individual sites in most cases. Where they differed, I felt the LinkExtend ratings were more accurate.
This is not surprising, given the recent concerns over SiteAdvisor's retesting policy. (See WS editorial director Brian Livingston's Feb. 19 Top Story for more). What I can say is this: the results of these tests have persuaded me to remove SiteAdvisor from my own PC and replace it with LinkExtend.
That's fine for me, but your mileage may vary. Having noted the reservations above, I suggest you try LinkExtend, as it's free and is easy to uninstall. I suspect you're going to be very impressed with the product. You can download it from its own page in Firefox's add-on library.
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