what are the best ways to check if a site is safe before you go there?

i want to use http://www.jango.com/ it needs javascript enabled and i don't know if the site is safe or not, a lot of music sites have exploits, like the lyric sites! i use opera and firefox sometimes.

 

There are some add ons to check such as vendors reliability,child safety, trustworthy,privacy etc.One I use IS (WOT) Web Of Trust and McAfee site advisor is another and so forth.WOT works for Firefox and IE but not sure about opera.My advice would be have a good Antivirus/antispyware to scan files in question.Some others here perhaps have some better suggestions.

 

You can check reputation at least.
http://linkscanner.explabs.com/link...SRC=apps.ExpLabs.com&CS=http://www.jango.com/
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.jango.com
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/jango.com

 

Firefox addon Finjan has realtime scanning but a more secure aproach is using virtualization software.
Sandboxie or Returnil are 2 free great choices.
If something bad happens these two app will retain the damage,and it won't affect the real system.If u are not so familiar with virtualization concept you can have a read on this forum about these 2 apps.
Opera is a very good safe browser out of the box,and combined with a decent av will be hard to get by,but if u think you need more protection the apps i've mentioned are very good,and easy to use IMO.
I use sandboxie and sometimes to see what new nasties are there i visit exploited sites from Outpost blacklist to see what's new.Sandboxie isolated all attempts always.

 

thanks for the help, i only use linux so i don't really have any real-time scanners working, i have profiled most of my internet facing apps with apparmor, i can see why a sandbox is useful but it's not what i'm looking for. i suppose what i want is something like finjan and site advisor so i'll try some of them out.

both opera and firefox have native protection, fx has Phishing and Malware Protection and opera has Fraud Protection does anyone know how effective they are at finding dangerous sites before you browse them?

 

You cheat you are using Linux.Why botter with security problems like windows users.
From Personal experience i can say that i've got a high number of "Reported Attack Site!" warnings from firefox.They could have the same database more or less with Outpost firewall "IP Blocklist" so that would explained it but overall i was pleased.

 

You can use Haute Secure widget for Opera http://widgets.opera.com/widget/9961/ before visiting sites. However it is sort of duplicating
the already built in protection provided, but you can check beforehand.
Being an Opera fundi I am sure you know about this.

 

Hello,
Pop a live CD, preferably Linux and go there ...
That should do it ...
Mrk

 

do you know if that's now integrated with opera? it's what i was trying to think of when i said Fraud Protection earlier. it's the thing i know least about with opera.

that takes too much time for me, it would be cool to be able to browse as normal and when you go to a site you don't trust you could open it in a tab that uses a sandbox or one of your VMs and have a 100% secure tab!

the thing i want is definitely one of the ways that alerts you from the search engine, i use search engines a lot rather than typing in URLs in the address bar. or, even better, if it ever gets a bigger database the native browser Malware Protections, i'm going to see if i can test them out anywhere to see how well they're working.

 

I use scandoo.com to do my searching which uses Google and scans the results.

 

Yes, it is integrated - see here http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2008/06/06/malware-protection
You can test it via the 'verybadsite' link.

More http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/06/opera-browser-integrates-haute-secure-to-block-malware/

 

If you're using Linux in the first place, I'd say - go for it ...
No need for any special extras ... you havethe sandbox already ...
Mrk

 

I wanted to test out RGGuard with FF 3, but it won't install.
Here is a list of tested apps.
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Lists_of_freeware_URL_scanners

They are always a goto for safety info.

 

Google used to have a firefox plugin for the Google Safebrowsing API but they've now bundled it with their toolbar.

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/safebrowsing/

The Sleipnir IE shell has a plugin too.

 

I think that that plugin was designed for FF2, since FF3 already has Google's malicious database.

 

Rarely there are virus which are specifically targeting Linux because there are so few Linux users.
However you may need to beware about cross-platform virus.

If you turn off the Javascript, Java and Flash (you may use NoScript for Firefox) before you visit a website, I think it's next to impossible that the website can do anything to harm you. Of course some sites don't work if you disable all of them.

So here comes another solution:
Sandboxing your Firefox is also a nearly perfect way to protect yourself whiole surfing. My recommendation goes to Sandboxie (freeware).

 

Hello,

There are few "viruses" for Linux, because they are useless for Linux ... And Linux is already a sandbox, to put it down in simple terms.

He cannot disable JavaScript > the site needs JavaScript ...

And if he goes to the site using any browser in a Linux distro, he'll be fine.

Mrk

 

You guys are going to laugh at my answer, because i use nothing whatsoever to check if a site is laced or not, and it can be a risky endeavor anymore. In fact, i done a simple northern lights search the other evening and Lo & Behold, it was laced with the now well known Anti-Virus 2009 exploit.

You fellows with FF and all the extensions? Now i know why all the hype over it matches the satisfaction always expressed, and still, what do i surf with? even though i could use Opera?

Yep, IE.

In my opinion those link checkers are benefits even if they occasionally miss a few, but the real culprit points for me to Google. Now Google with such a very high stock price and popularity courtesy so much mega-content, i feel they should be the one's who do an inventory of their own listings and either blacklist them or at the very least keep updated to the minute on the "This Site May Harm Your Computer".

Better yet, they should offer a reliable link checker themselves. Is anyone in remote agreement to this?

EASTER

 

By default, Opera uses several site databases by default. PhishTank and HauteSecure are the only ones on the top of my head at the moment.

 

+Netcraft

 

The McAfee Siteadvisor option from FireFox is great. However it does give danger signs occasionally to websites which are harmless. Use it simply as a filter.

 

Could OpenDNS also help ?

Even if using Linux, there are various websites that simply use tricks to fool users into doing things like advert click fraud, giving personal details, credit card numbers, then you might also have children (and innocent adults ) who want to avoid websites of things like exsplict or religious nature.

 

FFT: The Anatomy and Deception of a Malicious URL - http://community.ca.com/blogs/securityadvisor/archive/2008/03.aspx

S

 

i like those links, thanks. i just tried siteadvisor.com and it's down atm! i'm sure that won't last long though. i was right it's back up

cool, you reminded me i had that link too. i just installed Finjan, i hope it works ok on linux (i'm writing this with firefox so i can't restart it atm) virtumonde mentioned it, i'm certain i've heard of it before. i'm going to try out scandoo.com too, i've only ever used it very breifly in the past.

i've been using that for ages, my isp's dns stopped working once and that's when i switched. i sure they use blacklisting or whitelisting for something, i can't remember what it's for though! i suppose a host file should help a bit too.

i think i had that in one of my rss feeds, thanks.

has anyone who uses opera ever had it block a site with Haute Secure? i can't remember if it has for me, i remember the firefox malware protection blocking a site once, i went there in opera and it wasn't blocked.

actually, i remembered what firefox blocked and it's blocking everything on the domain rather than bad paths off the domain. here's an example The link below is safe to open, but blocked in firefox!
http://www.freewebtown.com/freshtbs/mbtr.html

freewebtown.com must be a free hosting site, so firefox blocking the whole domain rather than just the few bad pages blocks access to 1000s of good pages!