http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10374094-...tml?tag=nl.e757

That is very useful, I disabled Linkscanner when it was first introduced as I heard alot of bad things about it, one thing being that as it scans all the results on a google search so it works out that it is like you have visited them even if you never clicked on it, so if a illegal site came up in the results it would be like you had entered it.
I think either this was a misunderstanding on peoples part or AVG fixed the issue, Either way I never bothered to re able it and just use WoT, I wonder if WoT and LS with work together?

Hello,

to decrypt short urls, you can also use this free online tool (mentionned in the article) :
http://longurl.org/
It knows over 200 short urls services.

Firefox users can get this addon :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8636

I tested it, and it worked well.

I have AVG-free currently and the Linkscanner is part of the freeware package. I have it enabled but I don't actually have any faith in it. Too many reports of false negatives. It doesn't surprise me, as the ONLY time I've ever see a symbol that was not a green tick (meaning "Safe"), it was when I typed "Warez" into a google search at the suggestion of an AVG forum helper to see if the blasted thing was actually working. I've heard others say they have typed in various words that SHOULD bring up an awful lot of questionable sites, but without fail they come back with a green tick. The other thing is that the link scanner component is only updated very infrequently compared to virus definition updates. It's no substitute for an actual webshield or some of the other products that keep a database of bad links.

thats why in the title of the post, I put: "has anyone used this free tool?" 1st time I've seen it. I'm not an AVG user. Maybe we should take it out and shoot it

Please do it.

Previously I was using AVG Linkscanner, but now I find WOT is better.

Thanks for those links Falkra! Very useful.

I don't like those sneaky Google ads though right under the legit tabs on the first link (about, expand, etc...)
I could have clicked on one... I was hovering over one of them (to check on it first) and looked at the URL down below in the browser and it said Google ads in it then I noticed the Google ads text to the left... very sneaky on that page

I like AVG Linkscanner more because it only flags pages with malware

Technically only a webshield will scan a page for actual malicious content, and if you are using any of the paid versions of AVG then you will have a webshield as well as the linkscanner. If you mean the linkscanner will only flag pages with IPs associated with malicious content in the past (as opposed to other reasons for being blacklisted) then that's true, but to be honest I don't find the linkscanner very reliable. Do a google search on topics that should produce some dodgy links and you'll be lucky to see any ticks other than green (i.e. "safe") ones. False negatives are more of a concern from my point of view than false positives.....

I installed it yesterday. Removed it about an hour later, and that was a chore in itself.

Well, I have tried (at various times) McAfee Site Advisor, WOT, AVG Link Scanner and Finjan. Didn't really like any of them, so they are gone.

I will be relying on MBAM's IP Protection and Avast's WEB SHIELD & NETWORK SHIELD all of which seem to work very well.

My combination exactly except that I also have Avast's Network Shield running too. A very effective combination. I don't use any of the other tools mentioned earlier.