Check a website for malware before visiting it using Google Advisory

Have you ever been in a dilema about a website, not sure if its safe to visit or not ? Some link that got sent to you in a suspicious looking email, maybe friends playing a prank on you ? How can you tell if a website is safe to visit or not before visiting it ? How can you be sure the website is not spewing spyware or will infect your machine with a trojan or some other malware ? Of course your anti-virus or anti-spyware might be able to deal with the infection, but it would be prudent to check the website before hand..How ? using Google's advisory!

Thats right, if you are not sure about a website, just use Google's advisory to know more about the website. Its very easy, done using your browser and takes no installing of any software. Simply go to http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=PutSiteNameHere and replace the string PutSiteNameHere by the name of the website you want to check.

For example, if you wanted to check for the site indiawebsearch.com , simply modify the url to say http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=indiawebsearch.com . Google will then present you with its recommendations on the site, it will tell you if it has been reported as suspicious or not, and when did Google last crawl the site etc.