Haute Secure blocks Web threats

New Web threats today come not necessarily from sites built to host malicious content, but also from legitimate sites that have been compromised. A new safe Web surfing product, Haute Secure, is out of beta and available for free home use with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Founded in 2006 by former Microsoft security engineers, Haute Secure hopes to distinguish itself in a crowded field of products, including Grisoft Linkscanner and Finjan SecureBrowsing.

Haute Secure is a free 32-bit or 64-bit download when used for home use; businesses will be charged to have their Web pages checked for malicious code. At the moment there is little technical support offered beyond a few FAQs and a users' forum.

While we were pleased with the product's ability to block threats on compromised Web sites, Haute Secure did, however, fail to identify a few recent non-exploit-related phishing sites, which surprised us. Using five sites recently reported to a reputable, independent phish-tracking site (most were active an hour or less), we noted that none were flagged as active by Haute Secure. Perhaps that's because the pages themselves do not contain malicious code. Yet the pages do contain forms which, when filled out and sent in, could compromise your identity. Although Haute Secure uses phishing reports from Stopbadware.org and others, and will warn you of known fraudulent sites, we found the native anti-phishing protection in Internet Explorer and Firefox did a better job at flagging recently reported phishing sites.

[sal-magnone]

Watch out

I've been using this project since the beta was available and found it useful. However, I had to uninstall it after the recent version upgrade. It locked all my machines up in different ways and times. Uninstalling did the trick for each box.

Another problem is that the system consistently complained that it had not been shutdown properly, even when a normal shutdown had occurred. It spend a considerable amount of time and cpu checking its files when the system came back up.

Lastly, it keeps a small file where it tracks information that is HIGHLY fragmented. This causes your defragger to take ALLOT more time to run. I like to defrag and I watch the results (I use the builtin and OO products) and the difference is fairly large. You can see the defragger pounding on this file; it's weird.

I'd be interested in trying it again but I'd warn users against installing if they can't sustain a few bumps.

[Dalkorian]

not interested

From the article:

"Founded in 2006 by former Microsoft security engineers ..."

I lost interest right there. Guess why.

[tel1078]

Slow Performance

I was very keen to install this software to test especially since I have 3 children surfing the internet, thought it would be good for them. After a day or so, I found my page file and over-all memory at almost 100%. Really didn't know what was causing this until I un-installed the software. Once I removed it my system was back to normal. Seems to work like it should, but takes up way too much of my resources. Ted

[MantovaniTX]

I did use Haute Secure for some time until I found WOT, Web of Trust. It is a browser add-on that warns about dangerous websites by adding a tiny icon next to the search result: red for dangerous, green for safe. When the user is about to enter a risky site, the system shows a warning screen that tells about the potential danger. If you have kids you can set the system to block the access instead of giving a warning. I have found WOT ratings accurate. The free add-on is available at www.mywot.com