How to check if a website is "safe" for downloads

July 12, 2006 4:23 AM

How can I check if a website is actually what it advertises itself as (a game site)?

My kid found a website called www.download-free-games.com and wants to (you guessed it) download some games from the site. At least he was smart enough to check with me first before doing anything, and because he checked first, I agreed to find out if this site is legit or not.

It advertises itself as being 100% adware and spyware free and that all downloadable games (mostly demo versions I think). How can I confirm this without actually downloading something and running my McAfee virus checker against the downloaded files? Will McAfee check for adware or spyware or is there something that will confirm something is OK before it is installed as opposed to doing the clean-up after the event?

Is anybody familiar with this site or actually downloaded any games from it? Looking to the collective mind of MeFi for any help.

posted by 543DoublePlay to computers & internet (8 comments total)

SiteAdvisor says it's okay (tested in 2005). They have a lot of demo and trial versions, and that's how they make their revenue (marketing demos/trials for software companies), but they do have some free stuff that looks decent, too.

No personal experience but I'd give it a try... definitely scan all downloaded games with McAfee and perhaps the Microsoft Windows Defender (you are using Windows, yes?) tool before installing them.
posted by empyrean at 4:39 AM on July 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

McAfee also provides a Firefox extension that gives green, yellow and red lights on Google search pages to give you a quick visual shorthand of the quality of a site.
posted by yerfatma at 5:03 AM on July 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

One way to tell: If the domain name consists of hyphenated phrase, of if the domain name incongruously contains a number before a word, it's bad.

Might not hurt you, and your antivirus program should catch any virus payload, and your firewall should alert you to any strange phoning home behavior, but still...
posted by Mr. Gunn at 6:35 AM on July 12, 2006

I too use the FF ext., and couldn't do without it now.
posted by BillyG at 7:35 AM on July 12, 2006

Netcraft toolbar also reports nothing negative on it.

One way to tell: If the domain name consists of hyphenated phrase, of if the domain name incongruously contains a number before a word, it's bad.

Also, if someone takes your picture with a camera, they are stealing your soul.
posted by poppo at 7:46 AM on July 12, 2006

Here is an article in a magazine I've never heard of that mentions the site.
posted by 517 at 8:16 AM on July 12, 2006

And that somehow got redirected. Here is a google cache of the article.
posted by 517 at 8:18 AM on July 12, 2006

One way to tell: If the domain name consists of hyphenated phrase, of if the domain name incongruously contains a number before a word, it's bad.

Also, if someone takes your picture with a camera, they are stealing your soul.

Another way to tell, if the domain name consists of I-am-going-to-steal-your-soul-by-taking-your-picture.com, it's bad.


Seriously, don't pay attention to the way domains are, as long as you can actually read them. The only thing hyphens mean in a domain is that they wanted to make the long domain readable and memorable, or they were late to the scene.
posted by hatsix at 10:59 AM on July 12, 2006