McAfee Inc. has purchased Web-site rating company SiteAdvisor Inc., the two companies announced Wednesday.
Founded by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers in April 2005, SiteAdvisor develops automated software that tests Web sites to see whether they install nasty things like spyware or computer viruses. Last month the company released a free browser toolbar designed to warn users when they visited Web sites that seemed risky.
The SiteAdvisor software has applications in the security vendor's consumer and enterprise offerings, McAfee said, without offering details on how the site-rating software might play into its future products.
From SiteAdvisor's perspective, the acquisition offers several benefits, said Chief Executive Officer Chris Dixon in a posting to the company's Web site.
McAfee will help boost the SiteAdvisor user base and speed up the company's software development, Dixon said. And the purchase will allow SiteAdvisor to "leverage both McAfee