New Browser Plug-In Provides Real-Time URL Scanning in Search Results

A new Firefox and Internet Explorer plug-in called M86 SecureBrowsing offers real-time malware scanning for URLs displayed in search results and on social media websites.

The plug-in was developed by M86 Security, a provider of gateway Web and messaging security solutions, and is free to use.

Once installed, M86 SecureBrowsing anonymously sends all URLs displayed in search results on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, back to the company's cloud systems.

The cloud scanners check those pages using the company's Real-Time Code Analysis (RTCA) technology and report back with the status.

The plug-in then displays a visual indicator next to each link in the search results page. This can be a green checkmark for safe pages, a yellow question mark for pages that couldn't be scanned and a red X for pages that exhibit potentially malicious behavior.

The plug-in also scans URLs posted on social media websites Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Digg and Blogger.

The SecureBrowsing plug-in was actually inherited by M86 from Web security vendor Finjan when it acquired it in 2009, but it has since been overhauled.

The plug-in is designed to protect users from black hat search engine optimization (BHSEO) and social networking attacks, two common infection vectors in recent times.

"M86 SecureBrowsing provides the same technology we use to block threats from enterprise customers to provide a simple warning system for any user," explains Werner Thalmeier, vice president, product management, M86 Security.

The plug-in supports Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 and Mozilla Firefox 3.x running on Windows XP, Vista or 7. It can be downloaded from here.

While great for users, the plug-in might not be so well received by webmasters because real-time URL scanning generates unnecessary traffic for websites, and traffic costs money.

AVG faced a backlash from the webmaster community when it first released its LinkScanner product, which behaves similarly to M86's SecureBrowsing.