The odds of a search engine directing you to a risky Web site are getting slimmer, but some companies are better at filtering out bad links than others, McAfee reported. Google has improved over the past year, but AOL has the safest search results on the Web right now, McAfee said. The riskiest? Yahoo. Overall, a significant percentage of Web links are still risky, McAfee said. In its latest study, published Monday, about 4 percent of search results were found to be risky. A year ago, that number was 5 percent.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/06/04/Search-results-can-be-dangerous_1.htmlAlso see:
Study: Music, Tech Search Terms Riskiest (AP)
Search terms related to music and technology are most likely to return sites with spyware and other malicious code, a new study finds. Some 42 percent of the results using the term “screensavers,” for example, led to sites flagged with a “red” warning or a cautionary “yellow” by McAfee Inc.’s SiteAdvisor service. Other keywords McAfee deemed risky include names of file-sharing software – “BearShare,” “LimeWire” and “Kazaa.”
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_6057100
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060400403.htmlClick here for the full report, The State of Search Engine Safety.
McAfee: Search results can be dangerous
A study by the security company finds that 4 percent of search results send users to ‘risky’ Web pages; AOL’s search results are the safest, while Yahoo’s are the riskiest