The basic flaw is that it really needs a lot more levels, many sites warrant some form of warning (those with submits that do not verify EVERY submit may have bad things added) and association with bad sites should not be an automatic red.

One reason why point scale systems are better than cramming it to a 3 way traffic light.

I shut the dang thing off and it still likes to rear its ugly head,lol!

As for this site, I just click don't warn me again!

Suki

my take on using site advisor is: don't. Before I dumped it I tried a few sites that take Class 4 HazMat procedures to come away unscathed- and it stayed green.

Obviously enough people are using Yahoo to make Microsoft want to buy it, so it has a decent enough sized platform to take the Market Fight to Google.

I read that the quantity of Microsoft + Yahoo online email accounts would seriously dwarf the quantity of gmail accounts - but Microsoft + Yahoo would still have some catching to do before they were considered a competitive threat against Googles search and advertising engines.

But this is all off topic.

BuBBy, does anyone use Yahoo anymore

Yes it is useful to have an icon to give feedback when googling.

as well as Google, WOT will also do the same in:

AOL Search
Ask.com Web Search
Clusty
Digg
Gmail
Live Search
Search.com
Wikipedia
Yahoo!
del.icio.us
dmoz - Open Directory Project
reddit

and soon even more...

I suggested to the developers today it would be useful to be able to view ratings of your own favorites/bookmarks to check if you have bookmarked any nasties - and it is an idea they are already considering. Version 3 of WOT is in Beta now and will include user comments in the feedback. :)

I show McAfee SiteAdvisor as a Firefox 'extension'... when I went to view my extensions, it gives option of disabling it, and the uninstall button is grayed out. Hummmmm! Then again, when I am googling, it does help in knowing which sites NOT to click on with the big red X.

Yes I agree - the two reds are very similar - and the two greens are very similar. Thankfully there is no confusing the two reds with the two greens though. Considering SA last looked at this site in November or January - and reported the problem in March - I'd expect SA should've caught up and corrected the reporting perhaps around July 2008. :P

As I said - nothing like protecting you on the internet at Glacial speed. The good news is, if you fork out for the "plus" version I don't believe its reporting becomes any more accurate or responsive - so consider yourself blessed - you've currently got the SA "as-good-as-it-gets" version.

BuBBy: Already got WOT. I like that I can rate a site without having to go to their site. Cool little program. But I still run SA just to compare to WOT. WOT is better, but the difference in the greens is way too close sometimes, specially when not next to another green, to know if it is the top level green or going down toward the yellow.

I read where you wrote that GAOTD fixed at their end, hopefully SA will fix their side very soon... but not holding my breath.

The Site Advisor ship sunk years ago. Some people still stand behind Site Advisor hoping for some Advice, but personally I am surprised anybody relies on McAfee for anything these days.

My Advice: Uninstall Site Advisor, and check out one of the alternatives - doesn't matter which one... they all are a step up from Site Advisor. ;)

I know I am reviving an old topic, but I wanted to complain (vent).

I am very upset with McAfee's Site Advisor right now. Today I noticed that Giveaway of the Day has gone from Green to RED! I sent a message to alert GAOTD and advised them to deal with SA directly. However, in the freeware library there ARE about 4 files that SA shows as red and I think GAOTD should consider removing them if they really are bad files. (Don't want to personally try them, as they are files I don't trust by their names.)

Vent over. I won't be as trusting with SA's so-called "testing" anymore.

Hi RichU :-)
Yes indeed, ur right, Site adviser does help.
Although after so many false red's, I'm glad I switched to WOT ~2weeks ago.
Being dynamic AND people powered, there's a lot more personal input and so a constant evolution & assessment is welcomed, which I found lacking in McAfee. I read somewhere(not sure it's true) they are no longer keeping up to date, more like ridding on their laurels.

Although I use it in conjunction w LinkScanner, bc by scanning a live link it protects us from other type of threats like hijacked sites that neither WOT nor S.Adviser can protect us from.
I really never go out anymore without all my "swords" :=) It's tooo dangerous otherwise.
Peace, Manu.

The biggest flaw I see with the Site Advisor "car" is the red indicator light is on almost all of the time. In fact at times it seems stuck. After a while you get used to the light always being on, and like the "Boy who cried wolf", the significance of the red indicator is diminished.

When Site Advisor came out years ago it was revolutionary, as there was nothing like it. The flaws people could overlook as every other aspect offered fantastic information.

Times move on, and peoples standards change. The bar continues to rise, and users become less tolerant of shortcomings in its design. As with Antivirus and Antispyware software there are many users driving these tools without a license - running into trees, crashing through fences - and yelling to everyone "Quick! Everyone! Get out of the pool - there is a trojan on the loose". To some extent it is the fault of the software that the outputs are not explained better. But from time to time I see someone announce don't go to X because Site Advisor is Red. They don't know if the reason for the red rating will affect what they are doing.

There are a number of alternatives to Site Advisor, and the advantage of coming along second or third, is you have the benefit of hindsight and can learn from the errors of your predecessors.

One such tool, that has appears to have learned from the errors of it's predecessors is http://www.mywot.com/ Web Of Trust.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2251?replies=4#post-14090
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2354?replies=17#post-15089

agreed. which is why I no longer bother using it to allow McAfee insight into my browsing.

So many of it's warnings are about on the level of "his brother-in-law punched somebody so he must be bad", so you might as well take it's ratings with a grain of salt the size of Mt. Everest.

Neat idea, implemented in the usual 'we don't need no steenking facts to issue panic warnings' approach. [sigh]

The McAfee "red" system is like the indicator light on your car. Just because the red indicator light comes on, it does not mean that you stop your car and park it. It is simply an indicator or warning that there may be a problem. For some, who are not mechanically inclined, it is best to stop driving and take the car to a mechanic, while for others, it serves as a warning that they might need to perform some type of service on the vehicle in the near future. Still others, may choose to ignore it completely, because they already know why it is on and that it is not a critical issue.

McAfee Site Advisor is very similar. For the inexperienced user, it can help to keep you away from dangerous and harmful sites and keep you safe. By always heeding the red warning, the user takes less risk, but bypasses many opportunities. A more experienced user who wishes to read the explanations provided by McAfee, can determine for themselves whether the current site poses a danger, or the site has been flagged because a link could possibly lead to a dangerous site or download. By doing so, they have a bit more risk, but also have the greater reward of getting to many more sites and downloads which are really safe, but have been flagged as red by McAfee's site advisor.
The Site Advisor indicator is simply a tool. It is up to the user of the tool as to how they want to use it.
To use an extreme as an example, if absolute internet safety is the user's primary concern, they could just shut off their internet connection!
Having said all of this, McAfee has kept me out of harm's way several times, but by reading their short breakdowns, I have also found many flagged sites to be of no threat.
Hope this helps.