So Yahoo! is getting off its butt at last to warn users when its search engine results include potentially malicious sites.

Yahoo! SearchScan, which launches today in beta, is a rebadged version of McAfee SiteAdvisor (http://www.siteadvisor.com/about/). This website and browser plug-in pumps out text warnings in red or orange, or gives the all-clear in green, alongside search results.

And Yahoo! is delighted with its new puppy. "No other search engine today offers you this level of warning before visiting sites. Period." So writes (http://ycorpblog.com/2008/05/05/do-you-know-where-you-mouse-has-been) Vish Makhijan, head of Yahoo! Search, on the company's corporate blog.

Which may be true, but Google has been warning visitors about potentially bad sites for two years, now

You can see a screenshot of Yahoo! Searchscan in action in Makhijan's post. ®

Related stories

• McAfee: Why we blacklisted SANS (1 August 2008)

  http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/siteadvisor_sans_snafu/

• Review site furious over McAfee SiteAdvisor 'false alert' (17 July 2008)

  http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/07/17/siteadvisor_false_alert/

• Yahoo! banks on the power of ! (7 May 2008)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/yahoo_and_the_exclamation_mark/

• McAfee 'Hacker Safe' cert sheds more cred (29 April 2008)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/mcafee_hacker_safe_sites_vulnerable/

• McAfee pays $51m for Hacker Safe (30 October 2007)

  http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/10/30/mcafee_buys_hackersafe/