Currently in initial beta testing, Scandoo provides an early warning system to help users search the web safely and securely and avoid the risk of clicking on unknown web sites. The service guides web users through searches, allowing them to detect and avoid malware, including spyware, adware and viruses, as well as harmful, offensive or illegal content, such as pornography, gambling, hatred and phishing sites.

Scandoo.com is the brainchild of security specialist, ScanSafe. Scandoo is free, requires no downloads, software installation or updating. The initial version provides search options for Google and MSN Search. The service is expected to be rolled out to the other major search engines, Yahoo! and Ask in the near future.

Users can also scroll over each icon to see more detailed information about the sites? content, to set their own personal security preferences and to provide comment on specific sites. Scandoo users can submit feedback for any site, which is then checked ? if a change is accepted, the company's scanners and ratings are updated.

According to ScanSafe founder, Eldar Tuvey, the Scandoo principle is very simple: "It's a bit like providing traffic lights to guide you safely through your search. For most of us, web searching is something we do every day as part of our home or work life. Most search results look benign, but the fact is you're ?rolling the dice? ? you don't know what you are going to get once you click onto a new or unknown site. Scandoo.com eliminates this risk by scanning each search result for anything malicious as soon as you type in your search term and before you visit that potentially dangerous site. Our high speed scanners then feed the data back to the results page, providing instant security ratings ? all within a matter of milliseconds. Icons appear next to each site, a green tick if it is safe, an amber question mark if it is unclassified and should be approached with caution, or a red cross if it is one to be avoided. Any potentially harmful sites containing malware are clearly identified with a ?bug? icon."

"We believe the future of web security and search is moving very quickly towards a collaborative approach, where web users will help classify and reclassify the web accurately ? tapping into everyday people's knowledge is the key, so that our whole community benefits and is better secured, he added. "Employees of large enterprises often enjoy the latest security services for web and instant messaging, but there has been no move to provide similar security to home and small business users. Search is the main gateway to the web and for us seemed a great place to begin our entry into on-demand consumer security."