A new study carried out by a leading security firm revealed that online music websites pose a greater security risk for computers than adult websites.
McAfee's SiteAdvisor said that music and technology related websites have a negative impact on computers since they often leave spyware and other malicious codes, which can lead to a massive increase in the amount of spam generated.
The study revealed that browsing porn websites through search engine has a 9 percent risk of infecting PCs with spyware, adware and spam. This figure jumps to 19 percent when searching for digital music. Other sites that can harm computers are those related to electronic gadgets and for background wallpapers.
McAfee Senior Product Manager Mark Maxwell said that the lesser risk posed by porn websites was due to the fact that they are already raking in a lot of money and have no reason to indulge in such practices. However a slow electronics market means that people related to such industries will have to find additional ways to promote their products.
The study also said that queries related to file sharing software such as "BearShare", "LimeWire" and "Kazaa" posed a significant risk for the computers. Infact "BearShare" was found to be the riskiest search term, with over 46 percent of the search results found to be dangerous.
The study also compared the risk posed by major search engines and found that while Yahoo was the safest when browsing for unpaid listings, with 2.7 percent classified as "red", over 9 percent of the total paid listings for the search engine were dangerous. It also praised the tough measures taken by Google, stating that its search engine had improved its safety measure while Yahoo had worsened during the same period.
