Are You a Reckless Web User? Secure Your Browser With AVG Linkscanner

avg_head I am a reckless web surfer and I admit it. But seeming most of my browsing is done via a virtual machine or my mobile device I am protected. But what about the millions of other users that are using their Firefox to browse sites blindly. We use our favorite web browser to search for whatever we are looking for and then click the links to see what we find.

Now we don’t have to blindly click those links anymore. Using AVG’s Linkscanner browser plug-in. I installed it and tested it on Internet Explorer which worked flawlessly and on Firefox where it would not work with Google. Maybe it was something I did (or didn’t do) but I would love to hear about your experiences with it.

(Note: If you’re using AVG 2008 Antivirus software then you already have this installed, you just need to enabled it from AVG settings panel.)

I started by downloading the 14.4 mb installer from here

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I ran through the normal setup steps. You know hitting next, next and then finish”¦

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I choose the standard installation.

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And I allowed it to install the toolbar (which turns out to not be necessary to get this to work.)

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After you install it the plug-in will be added to each of your browsers automatically.

I only tried IE 7 and Firefox 3. In Firefox I was able to get Yahoo to show me AVG’s ratings on websites. Below is a search for the term Warez. You can see the Red X next to potentially dangerous websites and websites that are proven clean have a green check mark next to them.

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I fired up Google in Internet Explorer 7 and searched for HACKz and as you can see by the green check marks next to each of the search results”¦ They are clean! So you don’t have to be worried browsing on over to um research hackz and all :)

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Some of the statistics provided by AVG’s website will blow your mind:

  • On any given day, some two million web pages are poisoned by hidden threats.
  • 60 percent of malicious web sites appear for less than one day.
  • Real-time scanning is critical as relying on a database of known URLs isn’t sufficient protection.
  • 95% of online threats are web-based and cannot be stopped with anti-virus software alone.
  • AVG sees 100,000-150,000 threats a day.
  • Online criminals set up their own websites or poison legitimate ones (even just single web pages).
  • 60% of all pages hosting web threats are poisoned for less than a day, making the threats difficult to catch unless they are viewed on the actual page in real-time. This makes AVG LinkScanner essential protection.
  • One in eight web users will unknowingly come across a poisoned page at least once a month.

So how are you protected from web threats? Share your experiences and favorite software in the comments!

Tagged: • • • •

Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik here from AskTheAdmin.com doing a weekly guest blogging spot for our new found friends at MakeUseOf.com. I run my own consulting company, manage AskTheAdmin.com and work a full 9 to 5 job on Wall street as a System Administrator.

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  • mariamltz

    How about firefox’s add-on WOT? Isn’t it enough?

  • http://ftoc.blogspot.com/ catester

    AVG 7.x was a great product. AVG 8.5 tries too hard to do everything, including this link scanner feature, and bogs down any computer with less than 1GB RAM. I won’t even install it on a computer with 512MB, and when I do install it, I turn off the Linkscan feature because it is unbelievably, horribly, terribly, unacceptably S L O W, whether in IE or FF.

    Now…what? Grisoft is offering this thing as a standalone? Run away, run away.

    I agree with mariamitz – Web of Trust is the way to go. (http://www.mywot.com/) And it’s not just for Firefox, there is a free IE add-on as well for those who must use IE.

  • Nero

    just use the NoScript extension with Firefox and you can browse to your hearts content without any worry at all.

  • excentric

    I could not get it download on the newest Firefox. Keep getting an error message. I haven’t tried it on IE yet.

  • jollyrogue

    Seems just like McAfee SiteAdvisor, which i’m using now :)

  • http://ftoc.blogspot.com/ catester

    @jollyrogue – a lot like that, yes, but you want to be careful with McAfee SiteAdvisor: http://windowssecrets.com/2009/02/12/01-SiteAdvisor-ratings-may-be-1-year-out-of-date

  • dustov

    Firefox was seriously slowed down by this. I uninstalled it.

  • Curious

    Yeah, how does firefox extension WOT (web of trust) stack up against this? WOT seems to be doing a great job.

  • http://www.asiaprestigeidentity.com/website/ Anders blogger in websites

    I am fairly new in this business, so I read your comments with a considerably amount of interest. What I find extremely important is the question of how to make a site targeted on the potential group since I think the focus changes along with the conditions in the market. Right now where the crises are all over us new ways of thinking are necessary. Everybody wants to cut budgets and at the same time they want business to improve or rather to come back to “normal” whatever that is. The expectations to Website Designers and SEO experts have never been higher and do represent challenges never seen before. So it is good to get qualified advice from experts.

  • http://computersservicing.blogspot.com venkat

    I am using AVG which has link scanner very helpful in finding malware sites,having said that Google is the search engine all people use Google taken lot of security mesures that even show malwares sites in search results showing “this site can harm your computer”.SO that users can not open those malware sites.

  • http://nerwin.net Nick

    I use it, it works great, does not slow down Firefox at all, I have tons of addons installed in Firefox and the Firefox starts up within a second. This is great tool and can save you! I highly suggest this to users.

  • CURIOUS STILL?

    HOW DOES FIREFOXES EXTENSION WOT (WEB OF TRUST) STACK UP AGAINST THIS? I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW THANKS.