Yahoo aims to make search safer

Yahoo has teamed up with security firm McAfee to insert technology from the SiteAdvisor program into its search engine, in an effort to make it safer for surfers.

By integrating the technology from McAfee, Yahoo will be able to offer alerts for risky websites that are known to host malware, advising searchers against visiting them.

McAfee's SiteAdvisor is a blacklist of rogue websites that is constantly updated. It is a free application and has been downloaded 135 million times. Within the Yahoo search engine, it will be known as SearchScan.

Sites that have bad email practices, such as sending out large volumes of spam email, are also flagged up by the SearchScan feature.

"No other search engine today offers this level of warning before visiting sites that could damage or infect a PC, costing the victims valuable time and money," said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo Search.

www.yahoo.co.uk