CNET editors' review
-
CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 03/10/2008
- Released on: 03/07/2008
A safe Web-surfing product, Haute Secure is out of beta and available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Founded in 2006 by former Microsoft security engineers, Haute Secure hopes to distinguish itself in a crowded field, including Grisoft Linkscanner and Finjan SecureBrowsing. Today new Web threats come not from sites built to host malicious content, but legitimate sites that have been compromised. While we were pleased with the active threat detection within Haute Secure, newly active phishing sites without embedded malicious content did slip through. Older phishing sites were blocked. Haute Secure is free to download 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.
Setup and Installation
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit file from CNET Download.com and then reboot. There is no indication that anything has installed unless you stumble across the site that Haute Secure has identified as malicious. Once you do, the page is either blocked with the message within the browser, or via pop-up on the desktop.
Haute Secure provides a nominal interface where you can see the applications being monitored on your desktop and subscribe to additional block lists created by Haute Secure community members or your own.
Should you want to uninstall Haute Secure, there is an uninstall option within All Programs. After a reboot we found no traces in the Registry or our system directory.
Features
What's different about Haute Secure is that it hooks into processes running on your Windows XP or Windows Vista machine. Most of these are related to browsers. Additional hooks are used for specific applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Skype, and Adobe Acrobat.
