Best Internet Safety Check Freeware

Internet safety software helps you avoid online scams, identity theft, phishing, spam, and malware (including viruses, Trojans, adware, and spyware). There are many free options for Internet safety, including site advisers, site and link scanners, content filters and website blockers. Regular use of these types of software generally helps improve your online safety.

You should also never consider any security solution 100% safe, so it is best to use safe surfing practices. Prevention, luck, and user involvement is an essential line of defense.

Many sites conceal their deceitfulness; for example, let's say you simply want a relaxing fish tank screensaver, and you decide to search for one at Google. The search item doesn't sound malicious and Google is a known safe site. Right? Here are my real life results for a likely search term you might use. I searched Google for "screensaver" and found that 9 out of the 14 links on page 1 get dangerous warnings from WOT. So you have a 64% chance of surfing to a malicious site for that sensible search item. For the search item, "fish tank screensaver," WOT gave 12 of the 18 links on page 1 red warnings (plus 2 yellow alerts), which gives you a 67% chance of surfing to a red marked dangerous site (78% if you include yellow warnings). And "free screensaver" gave me an 89% chance of surfing a dangerous site. Searching for "porn" is 50% safer than searching for "fish screensavers." Maybe fish aren't that important after all.

Overall the numbers aren't that bad for most search results, but you would never know whether your particular search item is deadly unless you used safety advisers. McAfee SiteAdvisor estimates that about 5% of web traffic receives its red or yellow warnings, myWOT rates about 5% of sites as dangerous, and Exploit Prevention Labs' LinkScanner technology flags about 2%. But it's obviously much higher for certain types of websites such as those for "screensavers, free games, [and] contests" (McAfee FAQs). In other words, malicious sites try to lure you with appealing offers, such as for a free fish tank screensaver.

Internet safety software includes many different types of security methods.

• Get website safety advice: Some advisory software combines user input and known lists of threats to produce its ratings of sites (WOT); some combines many free online lists of threats (LinkExtend); and some massively tests web traffic and uses other information to produce security ratings (McAfee SiteAdvisor).
• Scan website content: Scanner software checks current website content for malicious behavior before you surf them (AVG LinkScanner, Exlabs' online scan, Finjan SecureBrowsing).
• Block or filter sites: Some content filters or website blockers warn you with a message before you use a site, but some censor sites from appearing in the first place whether because of security risks or unwanted content. See this discussion for many options: WOT, LinkExtend, SiteAdvisor, OpenDNS, K9 Web Protection, MVPS Hosts or hpHosts, Privoxy, Adblock Plus malware subscription, Glubble, KidZui, built-in web browser features.
• Passively block cookies and malware: Passive spyware blocking software prevents malicious content from hacking, spying, or tracking your computer (SpywareBlaster, Advanced SystemCare, Spybot Search & Destroy).

Here are some good combinations:

• Users with fast Internet connections: WOT (works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, and as a bookmarklet) or/and LinkExtend (you need Firefox/Flock for it), and SpywareBlaster (or similar). AVG LinkScanner or Exlabs' online scan are good choices for fast Internet connections (that use Firefox/Internet Explorer) and the most up-to-date, basic scans on suspicious sites, search results, and email links (since site or link scanners scan the current content of sites), but they find a narrower range of threats. Caution, though, use of too many of these may slow your Internet connection.
• Users with slow Internet connections or with Internet Explorer: WOT and SpywareBlaster. Finjan is a good active scanner for slower connections and Firefox/Internet Explorer.
• Quickly check or double-check a website online: you can use several online safety report search engines to see security reports for a site without downloading or installing software.
• Other tips for safe surfing: It is also a good idea to have Windows update on and to get a software updater since older software may have security flaws that outsiders can exploit. And I especially recommend virtualization as an additional layer of security. See Gizmo's Guide to Securing Your PC for more.

But advisory software like SiteAdvisor or WOT is not zero-day protection since a "good" website could decide to go over to the dark side, and users may make mistakes or disregard advice. LinkExtend, in fact, is a new option that combines several advisory sources to try to minimize the chance of any one service missing a risky site. Link and website code scanners, however, have the same limitation as any virus or malware scanner in that they don't find everything. They have the advantage of scanning the current content of websites, however, and not suffering from the limitations of advisory software (that might not be perfectly up-to-date).

The Internet safety software in this article is especially important because all the best security setups of firewalls, antivirus scanners, antispyware scanners, software updaters, secure erasers, drive encrypters, password managers, anonymous surfers, virtual protection-wares and magic defensive spells in the world (and yes, some of us use all of those minus the magic) will not completely prevent you, say, from entering your credit card information on an online form and sending it to scam artists.

For the sake of keeping down the length of this article, I split it in two. Here is part 2: How to Block Bad Websites.

 
I. Internet Safety Advisors

1. WOT is my #1 top pick for best Internet security freeware. WOT reports over 21 million rated sites (rated at least to some extent) and has over 400,000 user comments, according to statistics on the mywot.com home page. It combines ratings from competent users with automatic ratings from nearly a hundred independent sources, such as a list of phishing sites (read how it works). It also decreases the emphasis of ratings from some users; for example, if a user rates the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times lowly because they disagree with the editorials, then that user's ratings will be treated as unreliable.

It's excellent for giving you detailed warnings about potentially malicious websites. "It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites" (myWOT.com). WOT integrates well with many major search engines and online email providers, so it will quickly indicate the safety of websites in search results and links. This allows you to decide whether to surf to a site in advance.

Best of all: it uses a fantastic warning screen to empower users to avoid potentially bad websites without using "censorship" filters. If you happen to load a risky website, it will warn you before you interact with the site. But if you want to block risky websites completely, you can customize it to block sites in "Settings..." > "Warnings." The blocking feature, however, does not allow you to choose to ignore the warning and go to sites, and I had a few problems with it (it uses a slow "loading screen"; it reloaded pages after switching tabs -- like while I was editing this). You can also adjust and set the level of threat that will prompt warnings and blocking. If you don't like to see all the safe indicators in search results, then you can check "Show only negative ratings" in "Settings..." > "Searching."

It provides two distinct types of scores, including a circular symbol based on 5 colors from red to green for a website's trustworthiness, reliability, privacy, and child safety. But the 5 "people" icons indicate the reliability of the color scale ratings, so the greater the number of darkened icons, the better the supporting evidence for a site's ratings. It installs as an add on for both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and it provides a bookmarklet for Safari and Opera users to allow them to view a popup of website ratings (but it doesn't allow these users to create new ratings).

2. Firefox users with fast Internet connections may want to try LinkExtend, which incorporates advisory ratings from many different free sources. It's new and may still have some bugs, but it has the potential to be the most secure. Read more about it over at Gizmo's article: New Firefox Extension Makes Browsing Safer. It may be a good idea to turn off the McAfee SiteAdvisor rating since some of the comments question LinkExtend's ability to load SiteAdvisor's ratings accurately. And you may want to set it to wait for the ratings at 10 seconds in "Options" > "Main" so the ratings do not suddenly change, say, from green to yellow or red. Here is a screenshot.

In my testing on a dialup connection it did not perform very well in three major ways: the ratings may change dramatically as it continues to load them from various sources (this was on the 10 sec. wait setting), clicking on the security icon does not display the ratings very well (they reload every time you click, they are very slow, and they change like a slowly spinning lottery wheel sometimes), and after disabling it my entire Internet connection seemed to speed up. Therefore, it doesn't just slow down your Internet, it may mislead you with an early "safe" rating before it changes to unsafe.

3. McAfee SiteAdvisor massively analyzes websites and evaluates them for the public. It has reviewed over a million sites, and tested over 5 million downloads and tracked for over 7 million possible sources of spam. It also allows registered users to add comments to its reviews. The analysis is based on automatic roving tests of websites (downloading files, entering information in sign-up forms, clicking on links), employee analysis, user comments, and site owner comments. It focuses on "prevent[ing] a new breed of 'social engineering' tricks like spyware infections, identity theft scams, and sites which send excessive e-mail" (SiteAdvisor.com). It provides color coded ratings based on its analysis, such as a secure grade (highest), green check, and yellow and red for cautions. Here is a sample report posted by McAfee.

SiteAdvisor also installs as an add on for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It gave Firefox problems when I tested it. Firefox started to crash and the computer froze a few times, but this might be because of my setup. There are some reports and questions over the infrequency of its ratings. Additionally, in its "reviewer central" it has posted several websites where it is considering a change of rating based on user votes. So it is starting to integrate WOT style ratings but not as often or as quickly as WOT.

Both SiteAdvisor and LinkExtend can filter potentially malicious sites from search results. SiteAdvisor also has secure search engines, and LinkExtend can filter child inappropriate search results. These are not so helpful for parental control, but they may help make sure site content is family friendly when you search around with your kids.

4. If you need extra security to do your online business or for whatever reason, then Comodo's Verification Engine may be a good solution. Comodo's tool has anti-phishing, anti-keylogging, and ensures that website logos and login boxes are legitimate. It works with Firefox and some other browsers. If you are extra suspicious of a certain site or email or want extra security for online transactions, it would be a good additional tool. But it does, however, constantly run in the tray.

II. Website Scanners: The following scanning options are good complements to WOT, LinkExtend, or SiteAdvisor, which may not rate rarely visited sites and have a chance of being out-of-date. Scanners may not be as sensitive to as many forms of scams and malicious content on sites, but they scan the active content of sites in your search results or emails or even a specific web page on a site. But, of course, scanners sometimes cannot scan a link if it has moved and sometimes they have errors and fail to rate as well.

1. AVG LinkScanner is a great additional tools to scan for malicious content. It scans web pages in real-time and produces a color coded rating. It acts as a preventative scanner for search engine results (preventing you from surfing to bad sites in the first place) and as a silent shield constantly scanning the active content of sites. It's a good choice for when other safety check freeware fail to rate a site, or for a second opinion on suspicious sites, search results, and email links (since site or link scanners scan the current content of sites). But it warns that it only provides basic antivirus, antispyware, and safe surfing protection. Plus, you must have an Internet connection for it to install.

Note on a LinkScanner Lite version from Exlabs: It also helps protect against "exploits, hacked pages, phishing and fraud scams, and malicious lure sites" (explabs.com). You could keep its add-on optionally enabled if you use Firefox on faster Internet connections, but I suggest turning off the LinkScanner Lite monitor from automatically starting since it is not needed all the time and the add-on works without the active monitor; just open the "Console" program when you want to scan a link. On slower connections it may have more errors and difficulties scanning at all. It's on-demand scanner obviously works with any browser. Read an article about the main differences from site advisors for more information.

2. Finjan SecureBrowsing also scans website code and does a behavioral analysis to detect known and unknown threats from active content (from JavaScript, VB Script, ActiveX, Java applets). It "identifies potentially malicious code such as spyware, hacking code viruses and code that tampers with your PC system settings" (securebrowsing.finjan.com). It provides simple warnings or green checks next to search engine results. It works well on dialup connections, but it's only an add-on for Firefox or Internet Explorer. I like to check the "Show unsafe/red URLs only" feature in "Options."

III. Passive Spyware Blockers

1. SpywareBlaster is a very simple security program that helps block malicious content. For Firefox and many other browsers it mainly just blocks bad cookies from a list of specific sites. For Internet Explorer (IE) and browsers that use the IE engine it uses a list of restricted sites to block bad cookies, prevent the installation of activeX spyware, and prevent downloads/scripts/browser exploits (you can add to the list and remove websites from the restricted list). Opera is not currently supported. It has a few other security tweaks and features, such as a flash killer and system snapshot.

2-3. Advanced SystemCare and Spybot Search & Destroy have similar blocking features.

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Related to Internet and Browser Safety:

• New Firefox Extension Makes Browsing Safer
• Gizmo's Guide to Securing Your PC
• How to Surf More Securely
• Best Free Browser Protection Utility
• How to Improve Your Security When Using a Public Terminal
• Best Free Web Browser
• How to Block Bad Websites
• Best Free Parental Filter
• Free Password Manager: LastPass, TSA Article

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• Best Free Antivirus Software
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• Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use (HIPS)
• Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
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Search Website Security Reports or Scans Online (Without Downloading Software):

• Web of Trust (myWOT.com) Scorecards (use the search box at top)
• McAfee SiteAdvisor Reports (use the search box in the middle)
• Web Security Guard Reports (use the search box at top)
• Norton Safe Web Ratings (use the search box at top)
• Browser Defender Tests (Beta - use the search box at top)
• Exlabs' online scan for site safety scanning