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Browser Tools Aim to Warn Surfers of Spyware, Spam

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the paying-someone-to-think-for-me dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "New Web tools aim to protect surfers by flagging sites that are associated with viruses, spam or other scourges, but they sometimes disagree over whether a site is safe. From the article: 'Scandoo's service sometimes misses the mark in its efforts to flag adult content. On a recent day, it gave a green rating to the web site for Maxim Magazine's U.K. division, even though it contains nudity. It gave a red rating to the magazine's U.S. site, which contains no nudity. After an inquiry from the Online Journal, [executive Dan] Nadir said Scandoo decided to change the rating, reclassifying the U.K. site as red by default. "It was clear that it was misclassified, so we classified it correctly," Mr. Nadir said. A spokesman for Maxim Online said the discrepancy showed Scandoo's technology is "clearly broken."'"

9 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Broken? by rworne · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Mr. Nadir said. A spokesman for Maxim Online said the discrepancy showed Scandoo's technology is "clearly broken."'"


    No, it may have something to do with what is acceptable regarding nudity in Europe vs the US. Bare breasts is not apparently a big deal with our friends across the pond, but over here, it's cause to bring out the torches and pitchforks. Besides, last I saw Maxim (the US version) it contained no real nudity at all.

    --
    I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
  2. Google Safe Browsing by mishmash · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google Safe Browsing is a Firefox extension freely provided by google which warns of some dodgy sites.

    --
    UK Laptops
    1. Re:Google Safe Browsing by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with programs like this is that they simply can't catch everything. This in itself isn't bad until you have users which rely on them. Once users rely on these tools, they let their guard down, and they immediately trust anything that the tool says is okay instead of remaining suspicious.

      These are great tools, but they should add to personal judgement rather than replace it.

    2. Re:Google Safe Browsing by Qzukk · · Score: 5, Insightful
      These are great tools, but they should add to personal judgement rather than replace it.
      People seem to have left their personal judgement wherever they left their personal responsibility.
      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  3. Re:Where's the Firefox Extension for this? by dhasenan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Better yet, where's the one that automatically directs me to red-rated sites?

  4. McAffee Site Advisor by Dragoonmac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Site Advisor is an awesome firefox plugin that not only displays whether the site you are at is currently "safe", it also puts a little green check, yello exclamation point, or red x next to popular search engine's results. If you want to see why a site got a certain rating, you can click the check/mark/x or if you're at the site, the colored bar in the bottom of your browser, to see what McAffee found out when they scanned and indexed the site.

    --
    Shots: A Populist Parable
  5. Re:Maxim? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here you go

  6. Siteadvisor is better by klept · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dont know if similar post made- though I would think so - but I checked Scandoo out using some search words, one of which was the notorious screensaver word. I have a Firefox browser and was using a Google search. Funny thing on the results. There were no warning signs next to the paid advertisment placements of Google ads. I use a similar service called Siteadvisor on my FF browser. For the word Screensaver, there are some red warnings for the Google ads, and on Scandoo none. Though I havent read the comments to this post, nor the Scandoos info / help section, I think it is very misleading to have no warnings on the Google ads where there should be a warning. I think many might assume because they are Google ads, Google has checked out these ads. -Know I would- Wnen in fact, I dont think Google does any such thing. If I am misinformed, or there is something I dont realize, please let me know. But imho, I think Siteadvisor would be a much safer choice. Perhaps one could use both Scandoo and Siteadvisor to check out a site. Siteadvisor has an untested tag for a number of new sites. Maybe Scandoo has a rating. Otherwise I dont see the advantage in using this over Siteadvisor.

  7. Re:Where's the Firefox Extension for this? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.monzy.org/unsafesearch/