AOL Engine Safest, While Yahoo! is Risky

Web security firm, McAfee Inc. has released a report of its study on five major search engines, based on the extent to which they compromise on their users' online safety. According to an investigation, among the five most popular Internet search sites, AOL emerged as the safest engine, with just 4.4 percent of its search results linking users to risky Web sites. AOL is followed by Google and Ask Now, but Yahoo! and MSN are found to return riskier results.

McAfee SiteAdvisor, which was in charge of the investigation, added red, yellow, or green ratings to sites and search results, representing more than 95 percent of the trafficked Web. Red ratings were assigned to risky sites that fail one or more of McAfee's tests for adware, spyware, viruses, exploits, spam e- mail, excessive pop-ups, green rated sites passed each of these tests and yellow ratings were given to sites which pass McAfee's safety tests but still warrant a user advisory.

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