This site may harm your computer...

As a follow up to my previous post about Google's new service I'll add that I now have come across a site that Google has tagged with "This site may harm your computer" - in my case while following up a question from a customer about an e-mail they received from a company purporting to be a .CN domain registrar.

The first line on the search page returned after putting this company's name into Google's search bar was followed closely by the link to the page titled "Why do some of my search results say 'this site may harm your computer'"

Again, I commend Google for their actions in telling the searching public about the potential dangers lurking on the pages that Google links to - and I strongly suggest that you all start using Google to do your direct browsing - to the point where I'm starting to put link contents into a fresh Google search instead of going directly to the page; not every time, but more and more.

The reason for doing this (browse via Google) is two-fold:

• It serves as an added check of the pages for nasty stuff before I even get there
• sometimes the search brings me other interesting things and more information than I might have gotten from just following the original link

Both these reasons are significant. Early warning is better than not, and even if the page doesn't have something that triggers Googles's warning there may in fact be other results that make you think twice. In this case (the China domain registrar) the second Google listing was for a warning about exactly what I was looking for originally - the fact that it was a scam!

The human mind is still the best anti-virus checker in the world - use it!
And it may turn out that Google is the second best - so use it too!