We're on a web with lots of spiders. Traditionally, we think of spiders as the "bots" from search engines, such the ones from Google and Yahoo which scour the web for information, duplicating it. They're more like viruses in that respect.

What is more like a spider though on the web, is a phisher, scam artist, or hacker with bad intentions. They find a way into your account, often times trapping it by changing the passwords, and suck the blood straight out of it- spamming with your account and reducing your reputation, taking money out of it, and reducing your level of trust for the service which was messed up. These are all things which you never get the old back, you have to make new money, new reputation and new trust. There are ways to help prevent this from happening to you.

I'm a firm believe of there's no safer way to travel the web than to know where you're going before you get there or know what your downloading before you download it- Link and File checking. Always check the URL. The video above shows you how to do that and gives some tips.

Here are helpful Link/URL Checking Sites:

1. McAfee SiteAdvisor
2. Norton Safe Web
3. AVG Web Page Scanner
4. URLVoid
***Including Extract URL service. E.g. go.bit/ly3 to http://chexed.com/tags/?req=cloudy
5. http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=
(Replace website at end)
6. HPHosts
7. Unmask Parasites
8. Virus Total
9. Dr.Web

Don't forget to hold your mouse over the links above for 1-2 seconds to get the real URL Address to pop-up on your screen somewhere!


Here are helpful File Checking Sites:

1. ScanThis!
2. Dr.Web
3. Virus Total
4. Gary's Hood

My mom sent me this video from CNET recently which I thought may be helpful in keeping you untangled from the web. This video will show you how to use a few of the link-checking services listed above in greater detail.



CNET is a great resource for a variety of topics, security being just one. I hope these lists of file and link checking websites and services help along with this video.

Notes:
*To enable even safer browsing, disabling Javascript can really help, but render the web less friendly at the same time.

*Some of these websites offer browser plugins to make link and file scanning a little quicker. Just search for their name in conjunction with "plugin" and you'll find them that way.