Yahoo! uses McAfee for safer search

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 01:57

Your IT - Home IT

Yahoo! has begun using McAfee technology to help protect its users against risky sites.

Yahoo! now uses McAfee's SiteAdvisor to identify search results that may push various types of malware to PCs. Although this new feature - dubbed SearchScan - is only in beta, it is active by default.

"Sites that may harm the user's computer just by visiting them will be eliminated from appearing in Yahoo! Search results," said company officials. Potentially harmful search results are very clearly marked with a red warning triangle and a text label.

McAfee's SiteAdvisor has been available for some time as an add-on for Internet Explorer and Firefox, and last year Google introduced search result checking feature that is broadly similar to SearchScan.

"No other search engine today offers this level of warning before visiting sites that can damage or infect a user's PC and cost them valuable time and money," said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Search.

SearchScan is initially available on Yahoo! search in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

There is more to the Yahoo!-McAfee deal than SearchScan, and the companies say "additional elements" will be available in the next few months. One of them is said to involve "bringing Yahoo! search to McAfee users" - unless they are talking about bundling a Yahoo! toolbar with McAfee's security software, it's hard to see what's stopping McAfee's customers using Yahoo! search already.