How do I turn off SiteAdvisor?.. it constantly marks safe sites as risky or worse and re-directs to vague site reports that don't help.

[technician]

Hi everyone,

I have McAfee installed because it has recently become the default anti-virus program supplied by my ISP.

SiteAdvisor is an absolute piece of crap that falsely rates safe websites as risky, malicious etc.

I know these are false ratings because it's happening with a few sites that I've built myself and I know they are safe.

I am sick to death of SiteAdvisor interrupting my browsing with it's re-directs to BS "risky website" reports that give no details of actual risks but.. can find no way to turn off this crappy part of what seems like an otherwise half-decent anti-virus program.

Any help with would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[exbrit]

It's there to protect you but like anything, it isn't perfect.  Try a similar application such as MyWoT and see how you get on with that.

You can appeal any wrong findings if you are a site owner:  https://community.mcafee.com/message/68874#68874

Under your browser Tools/Add-ons or Manage Add-ons depending on browser simply disable it and McAfee Scriptscan.

Or go to Control Panel/Programs/Uninstall a Program (Add or Remove Programs in XP)

Click it if listed on its own and uninstall.  If not listed click McAfee SecurityCenter and click Uninstall.

The interface should then ask you what you want to uninstall..select just SiteAdvisor.

[technician]

Hi Peter,

"Protect me"?.. from what?.. my own website?..lol .. and "not perfect"?.. from what I've seen (in both my own experience and plenty of complaints on this forum).. that is a gross understatement.. I even saw a thread in here that is dedicated to sites that SiteAdvisor has given a green rating to that should be red.

So SiteAdvisor is failing to "protect" it's users from "actual threats" AND re-directing traffic from safe sites.. calling them a "threat risk".

If McAfee doesn't get a grip on this soon.. I can see American lawyers jumping all over this with libel suits on behalf of business website owners who are losing money because of these false reports.. it's a good thing for McAfee that business owners who don't use McAfee wouldn't even have a clue this is happening.

Thanks for the uninstall instructions.. I'll get right on it.

Cheers.

[Hayton]

SiteAdvisor is being revamped, with more emphasis on the TrustedSource component. The SA site reports contain risk information from the test process, and so are always liable to show a delayed picture of a site's status. TrustedSource ratings are monitored and reset as required almost in real-time. Ratings of course are influenced by outside agencies, who sometimes make mistakes or don't update their records often enough. That's why there's an established ratings dispute procedure. As for the green-should-be-red thread : true enough, but it mostly reflects the personal opinions of its contributors. Occasionally there is a site which stands out as obviously misrated, and those sites do get re-tested. The system isn't perfect, but the more people who keep an eye on it and point out the shortcomings, the better it becomes.

If you don't like SiteAdvisor, you don't have to keep it. Just uninstall it, as Ex_Brit indicated.

I don't suppose you would care to let us know which are the sites that you have created which SiteAdvisor has misrated? One site would perhaps not be unusual, but multiple sites would seem to indicate an underlying issue,

and I'm wondering what that might be.

[exbrit]

Sorry you've had a bad experience.   Good luck.

[technician]

Hi Hayton,

Yeah.. I'm not convinced that posting my website URLs and those of my clients here would be in my best interest.. considering how I've just pooped all over SiteAdvisor.. if our sites get a "risky" rating for no reason.. I'd hate to see what happens when there's actually a motive to be biased against us.

I've used the "ratings dispute procedure" (which is a complete pain in the arse) about 36 hours ago with no reply so far.. I'll wait that out to see what happens.

If the abundant evidence of the program's shortcomings posted in this forum (complete with the complainants' site URLs) are not convincing enough for you.. just search Google for SITEADVISOR FALSE POSITIVES .. that'll return about half a million results and, with each one presumably referring to more than one instance of a false positive (being that the search term is plural).. that would indicate at least a million (1,000,000+) false positives.

I know if one of my own products had a fail rate like that.. I certainly wouldn't still be selling the thing as a solution that works.

.. and yes.. I did see Peter's suggestions for how to disable it.. hence the last sentence in my previous post where I wrote.. "Thanks for the uninstall instructions.. I'll get right on it."

Cheers.

[x-pmeyer]

Hello technician,

would you mind to share your website(s) with us so that we can review and adjust them in our database accordingly?

You can either send me a private message or anonymously submit them at http://www.trustedsource.org/en/feedback/url?action=checksingle by selecting the product "Site Advisor".

Thank you,

Peter Meyer