Haute Secure - Web Based Protection from Malware

Paul Thurrott on his Windows Weekly podcast mentioned a new browser plugin, Haute Secure, that looks very interesting. It is designed to take a multi-prong approach to block web based malware from getting to your computer.

According to the Haute Secure web site,

Most web surfing begins on a search engine. It’s also where the threat of data theft begins. Malware writers often create entire sites to infect users. And many good sites with web 2.0 content such as Flash video, widgets, and blogs have pages infected with user-submitted malware. Haute Secure makes searching safer by providing three types of information about the URLs in their database, each linked from icons right next to the listing:

• Community relevance: stats from sites like Digg and Delicious help filter results
• Social safety rating: a voting tally from the overall Haute Secure user community
• Malware warnings: if a URL is on our suspicious on banned lists, you’ll find out here

The site also says it helps protect your computer with some other techniques, I will check it out for my personal use and for our office and report back. Oh, and yes, it is free.