Find Spyware & Viruses: 3 Best Resources

The Pervasive Threat of Malware Online

The internet environment unfortunately fosters the proliferation of malicious software. Daily, new websites emerge that harbor viruses, worms, keyloggers, and a variety of other harmful programs.

Upon being accessed and launched by an unaware user, these threats activate, compromise the computer, and can inflict significant damage upon the system.

The Economic Impact and Ongoing Battle

Malware generates economic losses globally, amounting to billions of dollars. Despite increasing user awareness regarding sound security protocols, a constant struggle persists between the creation of malicious software and the development of defenses against it.

A common vector for malware infection is through general web browsing. Therefore, proactively avoiding websites known to distribute spyware and viruses is a highly effective preventative measure.

Resources for Enhanced Online Safety

This article presents three resources designed to diminish the risk of inadvertently encountering malicious websites. While manually checking domain lists for unsafe sites is possible, utilizing a browser plugin offers a far more streamlined and automated approach to identifying and circumventing dangerous web locations.

These plugins work continuously in the background, providing a crucial layer of protection as you navigate the internet.

Practical Steps to Minimize Risk

• Browser Extensions: Employ a reputable browser extension specifically designed to block malicious websites.
• Website Reputation Services: Leverage services that assess and report on the safety of websites.
• Regular Updates: Ensure your browser and security software are consistently updated to benefit from the latest threat intelligence.

Web of Trust (WOT)

Type: Browser extension and web service.

Service: WOT provides website evaluations derived from user feedback and domain information.

Supports: A wide range of browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and is also available as a Bookmarklet.

WOT extends its functionality beyond simply identifying spyware and viruses. It functions as a comprehensive service, evaluating websites based on overall trustworthiness, vendor integrity, privacy practices, and safety for children. These evaluations are generated by a large, global user base.

Users are able to submit reviews and comments to substantiate their ratings and highlight specific issues encountered on particular web pages.

In addition to user-provided data, the service incorporates information from external sources, such as phishing site databases maintained by PhishTank.

The WOT rating is displayed both within search engine results pages and directly within the user’s web browser.

A detailed rating, complete with user comments, can be accessed via the 'scorecard' for each website.

When a user attempts to visit a website with a negative rating, WOT presents a warning message that must be dismissed before access is granted.

WOT also features a convenient online tool allowing users to manually assess the reputation of any website by entering its URL.

Alternatives: Currently, there aren't any directly comparable alternatives to WOT. Other similar browser extensions often lack a robust community or broad browser compatibility.

Many lack key features, such as ratings displayed alongside search results, or support only a limited number of browsers.

Other tools evaluated include Trustpilot Guard (Firefox), TrendProtect (Internet Explorer), and McAfee SiteAdvisor (Firefox and Internet Explorer).

LinkExtend

Type: browser toolbar

Service: This tool delivers meta-site-ratings focusing on areas like computer security, child protection, corporate ethics, and website popularity.

Supports: The Firefox web browser.

Overview

LinkExtend functions as a Firefox toolbar, integrating a diverse set of services categorized as Safety, KidSafe, Ethical, Site Traffic, and Thumbnails.

Its rating system leverages multiple resources, including WOT, Google Safe Browsing, Alexa, and Scryve, among others.

Customization Options

Users have the ability to disable individual resources within the LinkExtend options if they prefer, accessible through a button located on the right side of the toolbar.

Upon installation, a setup wizard assists users in configuring their preferred settings.

Key Features

The ratings and thumbnail previews displayed alongside search results are remarkably thorough.

Furthermore, the toolbar allows users to highlight search terms directly within the results pages by utilizing the yellow marker icon.

Adjusting Information Display

Should the added information prove excessive, users can selectively disable specific features through the toolbar’s options menu.

This ensures a tailored experience based on individual preferences.

URLVoid and URLVoid VScan

Type: Website

Service: A website reputation service utilizing multiple ratings and URL scanning for potential threats.

URLVoid functions as an online platform that aggregates website ratings and performs scans to identify malicious content. It’s crucial to understand that these functionalities represent distinct services within the platform.

The detection of websites with questionable reputations is achieved through the integration of various resources. These include Google Diagnostic, MalwareDomainList, PcTools Browser Defender, PhishTank, Norton SafeWeb, and MyWOT, among others. Results are compiled rapidly, typically within seconds, and the tool presents the rating status from each service alongside a comprehensive overall summary.

A permanent link for a specific webpage – for instance, a link pertaining to MakeUseOf – can be saved and easily shared for future reference.

URL scanning for viruses is accomplished by leveraging several antivirus engines. These include Avast, AVG, AVira, and Kaspersky, to name a few. However, this process can be time-consuming; during testing, a query was placed at position 16,946 in the processing queue.

Furthermore, the queue position did not improve, but instead decreased over time.

It is worth noting that McAfee SiteAdvisor and TrendProtect are not considered among the most reliable resources highlighted in this analysis. Both McAfee and TrendSecure are established names in the cybersecurity industry.

However, several inconsistencies were observed with these browser plugins. Notably, numerous websites flagged as unsatisfactory or poorly rated on WOT received a 'safe' rating from both McAfee and TrendProtect.

Moreover, certain sites demonstrably identified as unsafe and malicious by WOT users displayed a McAfee SECURE stamp, indicating they had been 'verified safe for e-commerce' and were 'tested daily for hacker vulnerabilities'. These discrepancies are significant.

Determining the accuracy of each rating system is challenging. In cases of conflicting information, prioritizing a negative rating over a positive one is advisable. Therefore, caution is recommended when using McAfee SiteAdvisor.

If you utilize the Firefox browser, consider exploring this article for the 10+ Best Firefox Security and Privacy Addons.

For additional online safety resources, refer to the article 4 Quick Sites That Let You Check if Links Are Safe.

What measures do you take to ensure secure browsing?

Image credits: Vaju Ariel