≡ Menu

McAfee SiteAdvisor Search Toolbar for Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Chrome Review

McAfee SiteAdvisor ToolbarMcAfee SiteAdvisor Search Toolbar is a search toolbar which warns you when you are visiting a unsafe website which is infected with a virus. McAfee SiteAdvisor is not an Antivirus. It is just a toolbar which warns you of known dangerous websites like virus infected, scam, frauds, and un-secure sites which McAfee has discovered. It works similar to the Norton SafeWeb Toolbar, and other security based toolbars like AVG linkscanner tool bar. However, you do not have to install McAfee Antivirus to use McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbar.

I like that it was easy to install. All I have to do is run the installer for Siteadvisor, and it will be installed on all compatible browsers for SiteAdvisor like Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Chrome.

SiteAdvisor also displays badges next too each website link on search results for Yahoo, Google, Bing, Ask, and AOL search engine results when you search for websites. If you hover over the SiteAdvisor badge on the search results with your Mouse cursor, you can also see a short summary for safety of the website. You can also click the badge on the SiteAdvisor toolbar, to view the safety summary of the page which you are currently on.

SiteAdvisor Google Search Results

Red means dangerous, Yellow means caution, Green means safe, and Gray means unknown for the badges in the search results. Also, if you visit a website by using the address bar, or a bookmark to go to a website, SiteAdvisor will also advise you if the website is safe or not.

McAfee SiteAdvisor also warns you of unsafe downloads if the website link which you are downloading from.

If a website is not safe, a pop-up message will warn you to leave the website because it is unsafe.

The McAfee Toolbar is very easy to use. All I need to do is install it, and let it run. In Internet Explorer, and Firefox there is a search box, but in Google Chrome, there is just the McAfee SiteAdvisor badge which tells you the safety ratting of the website. The Toolbar for SiteAdvisor is located on the top of the browser for Internet Explorer, on the bottom for Firefox, and on the top right corner for Chrome. The Toolbar is only about a few pixels tall like most other toolbars for IE and Firefox. In Chrome, SiteAdvisor is only a small badge, so it uses very little space in Chrome.

McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbar service only uses 2MB of RAM according to Windows 7 Task Manager, and does not slow down Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer in my experience. McAfee SiteAdvisor works for the latest version FireFox 4, Internet Explorer 9, and Google Chrome 10. I tried McAfee SiteAdvisor in Internet Explorer 9, Chrome 10, and FireFox 4, and McAfee SiteAdvisor did not slow down my web browsers to a noticeable level.

You can download McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbar from siteadvisor.com

If you make an account at SiteAdvisor.com, you can leave comments on the safety of the website to warn other members. You can also search to see if a website is safe on SiteAdvisor.com

There is also a paid version of SiteAdvisor for 19.95 a year which has extra features like preferred search engine, protected mode which lets you password protect Siteadvisor settings, download protection to protect you from malicious downloads, Instant Messenger and e-mail dangerous link protection, Safe URL shortener,  and a compact user interface.

McAfee SiteAdvisor is not a replacement for an Antivirus, so you should still have an Antivirus program installed on your computer.

McAfee Site Advisor has been blacklisted from FireFox 3.31-5 because of instabilty and incompatibility issues as of March 14, 2011 according to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i25 , so if you are a FireFox version don’t use it.

16 comments… add one
  • aniket June 7, 2011, 2:06 am

    very,nice i like

  • Johnson Yip June 7, 2011, 1:54 pm

    Thanks, Aniket, I glad you like my post. I agree McAfee Site Advisor is very nice. I like how it warns me of dangerous sites, and it sits at the bottom of Firefox, so it does not take up a lot of space like regular toolbars which are at the top of a browser.

  • irrate July 11, 2011, 4:49 am

    You need to research your content better. As of March 14 2011, Firefox blacklisted SiteAdvisor, and completely blocked it from ever being used.
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i25

    It seems highly unlikely that Firefox will change their policy unless McAfee fixes SiteAdvisor, so please fix your article so as include this fact.

  • Johnson Yip July 11, 2011, 2:34 pm

    Thanks, Irrate for informing me SiteAdvisor is now a blocked add-on.

    I made the corrections to the bottom of my blog post saying FireFox blocked it from ever being used as of March 14th 2011.

  • Ben Compton October 1, 2011, 9:21 pm

    Hey just to let you know, I do not like the Siteadvisor so much. I had problems with my computer and suspected SIteadvisor of slowing the Internet when checking websites. I do not know but I suspect it is Siteadvisor. I go to google, type in something and because siteadvisor ALWAYS looks up each page on the list, but before I finished typing crap in to Google. Is there a way to limit Siteadvisor to check on when the site is loading from a keystroke instead of other things? Of course I could probably stop google from trying to guess my answer. Just annoying is all… Though it is saved me a couple of times!

  • Johnson Yip October 2, 2011, 1:35 pm

    Hi Ben, I think there is no way to do this. When I use Google Chrome and SiteAdvisor, I did not experience any noticeable slowdown. It could be another plug-in installed on your browser which might be slowing down Google, or it can be your internet speed. I recommend using your browsers search box in the top right or in the address bar for Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer 9 since it does not use Instant search which I also find somewhat annoying because of the flashing, and scrolling. Also, updating to the latest version of your web browser may help.

  • Bert May 6, 2013, 8:45 pm

    Howdy! Do you know if they make any plugins to safeguard against hackers?
    I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on.
    Any tips?

  • Johnson Yip May 7, 2013, 6:46 pm

    I think the NoScript Plug-in for Firefox will stop most attacks from bad websites. McaFee does make Firewall software to stop hackers, but there are free alternative sofrware like Comodo firewall which works pretty good for a free firewall software.

    I recommend backing up your work, and things on your computer to an external USB hard drive.

  • The Pleasanton Lawyer firm March 26, 2014, 10:01 pm

    Hi there would yoou mind letting me know which web host you’re using?
    I’ve loaded your blog in 3 cmpletely different web browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then
    most. Can you recommend a good hosting provider at a
    reasonable price? Cheers, I appreciate it!

  • Johnson Yip March 27, 2014, 7:54 pm

    I use 1and1 webhost.

  • Keesha April 13, 2014, 7:02 am

    Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon yyour blog and in accession capital to assert that I
    geet in fact enjoyed account your blog posts.
    Anyy way I will be subscribing to your auvment and even I achievement
    you access consistently rapidly.

  • Antoine April 29, 2014, 9:48 am

    If some one desires to be updated with most up-to-date technologies afterward he must be pay
    a quick visit this web page and be up to date daily.

  • juanmarmol October 3, 2014, 4:15 pm

    thank you a have mcffe antivirus AND MY COMPUTER I WNAT TO FIND Mcffe serach in my compuer

  • Good job April 18, 2017, 7:40 am

    Good post, keep

  • addiction and family April 21, 2017, 12:45 pm

    Thanks in support of sharing such a nice thought, article is good, thats why i have read it entirely

  • togel sdy October 22, 2017, 6:12 am

    What’s up, yes this post is actually pleasant and I
    have learned lot of things from it about
    blogging. thanks.

Leave a Comment