These days malicious websites are growing at an alarming rate, most surfers are actually unaware of it. According to a recent study of Websense Research lab, more than 77% of the websites that were found to be malicious were actually sites with good reputation that had been compromised by attackers. And also more than 70% of the top 100 most popular websites (social networking and search engines) either hosts malicious contents or contains masked redirects to lure unsuspecting victims to malicious sites.

So, real-time monitoring and protection against online threats have topmost importance. Otherwise, it ends up losing your money, your identity and your most precious digital memories. AVG LinkScanner (For Internet Explorer and Firefox) is a free program that checks each web page in real-time before it opens on your PC. If it sees trouble ahead, it stops you. It’s quick and easy to install, runs smoothly alongside other major brands of security software.

AVG LinkScanner has a two-fold approach to your safety online: Search-Shield scans search results and places a safety rating next to each link, so you know where it’s safe to click.

Active Surf-Shield scans the page behind any link you click on or any web address you type into your browser. If the page is poisoned, it stops you from opening it. (This happens so quickly that you shouldn’t even notice it.)

The fact is that AVG LinkScanner works in real-time makes it unique. The software doesn’t rely on "blacklists" of sites that have previously been poisoned, but instead checks for active threats right before you arrive at a page.

There are several similar services, but AVG LinkScanner found to quite reliable and efficient in detecting malicious sites. More information and free download is available here.