LinkScanner - what is it?

The LinkScanner component provides protection against websites that are designed to install malware on your computer via the web browser or its plugins. LinkScanner technology supports MS Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, and consists of two features, AVG Search-Shield and AVG Surf-Shield. The Online Shield is also part of AVG 2012, protecting computer from viruses and malware during browsing.

AVG Search-Shield contains list of websites (URL addresses) which are known to be dangerous. When searching Google, Yahoo!, Yandex, Bing, Baidu, Ask.com, AOL or Seznam.cz, all results of the search are checked against this list and a verdict icon is displayed (for Yahoo! search results only "exploited website" verdict icons are shown). AVG Search-Shield checks also links on Facebook, Myspace, Slashdot, Digg, Twitter and sponsored links on eBay as well as links received in MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express, Gmail, Yahoo! mail and Hotmail. Also if you type an address directly into your browser, click a link on any website or in your e-mail, it is checked automatically and blocked if necessary.

AVG Surf-Shield scans the contents of the websites you are visiting, regardless of the address. Even if a malicious website is not detected by Search-Shield (e.g. when a new malicious website is created, or when a previously clean website now contains some malware), it will be detected and blocked by AVG Surf-Shield when you try to visit it. As the AVG Surf-Shield scans the HTTP traffic it works regardless of the browser used.

The LinkScanner component can be connected with the AVG Security Toolbar, which is a part of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Internet browsers. You can read more about AVG Security Toolbar in FAQ 4359.