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Internet is full of all types of websites. There were about 266 million websites till December, 2010. Many of these websites have unsafe or malicious contents that can harm your computer. These sites facilitate distribution of malicious content either intentionally or because they have been compromised. In fact, the owners of many such websites, which distribute malicious content, may not even be aware that their sites are contributing to distribution of malicious content. However, irrespective of whether or not a site is distributing malicious content deliberately or unknowingly, if you visit such a website, it may harm your computer in one or the other way. StopBadware.com is a not-for-profit organization / website that can inform you about the behavior of any website as to whether it contains “badware”. Badware is here defined as a “software that fundamentally disregards a user’s choice about how his or her computer or network connection will be used”. Basically, badware would include all sorts of malicious software or content.
StopBadware started as a project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. It is supported by partners such as Google, Mozilla Firefox, Paypal, Verizon, Qualys, SoftLayer. StopBadware is an effort to make the Internet safe through preventing, detecting and remedying badware websites, i.e., those sites which distribute malicious content, either knowingly or unknowingly. It aims at protecting Internet users from becoming victims of viruses, spyware, malware, and other malicious content. [Also see: Find out with Google if a site is safe for browsing].
As of this writing, StopBadware.com has a database of more than 840,000 websites that have malicious content. So, if you want to know if a website has malicious content that can harm your computer’s data and files and/or otherwise creates security concerns for you, visit this page to search Badware Website Clearinghouse. You’ll get a detailed report on the safety. For example, have a look at following picture (partially) showing detailed report on such a reportedly badware site that allegedly distributes malicious content:
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Detailed report about an insecure site from StopBadware.com
Thus, StopBadware will help you in deciding whether the site you intend to visit is trustworthy or not. It will also link its report to other similar resources on the Internet that alert you about the security aspects of a website, such as Web of Trust, Site Advisor [see, McAfee Site Advisor if a website is safe to visit], Wikia Website Review, and SiteJabber.
It goes without saying that StopBadware.com is free to use and you can check any number of websites on it for free. So, before you visit a site that you suspect to be a malicious site, make it a point to check it on StopBadware.
