Dangerous Web Domains, Stay Clear!
I have said for a long time that the biggest risk to your computer’s health is your own surfing behavior. Now an article at [Yahoo! link now dead] reports on findings by McAfee that, indeed, some domain “extensions” are more dangerous than others.
Of particular note are domains “.hk” (Hong Kong), “.cn” (China) and “.info” (information). Of the .hk sites 19.2% were found to be dangerous or potentially dangerous; 11.8 for .cn and 11.7 for .info.
As a comparison, just over 5% of “.com” domains were found to be hazardous.
Honorable mention for danger are, no surprise, “.ro” (Romania), with 6.8 percent, and “.ru” (Russia), with 6 percent of sites flagged as dangerous.
How about the safest sites? Here McAfee claims that “.gov” (government) at 0.05%, “.jp” (Japan), with 0.1% and “.au” (Australia) with 0.3% are the least risky domains by domain extension.
Pay attention to where you are going. And while I don’t particularly care for McAfee’s internet security software I do highly recommend that you download and use their free SiteAdvisor web surfing safety tool.
