Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Google warns on 'unsafe' websites

Google has started warning users if they are about to visit a webpage that could harm their computer.

The warning will pop up if users click on a link to a page known to host spyware or other malicious programs.

The warnings will be seen by anyone using the search engine who clicks on a link to a site identified as harmful by the Stop Badware coalition.

Google, PC maker Lenovo and Sun set up this initiative in January 2006 to identify dangerous software and the websites that try to trick people into installing these malicious programs.

A research report released in May 2006 looked at the safety of the results returned by a search and found that, on average, 4-6% of the sites had harmful content on them.

For some keywords, such as "free screensavers" the number of potentially dangerous sites leapt to 64%.

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