No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Is boutell.com legit or a scam?
This looks safe to use.
31-year-old personal site of Thomas Boutell with clean scans, no scam reports, and historical open-source contributions.
Analysis Summary
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
Visual analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
Visual red flags detected in the screenshot
The site appears to be a legitimate but very old personal or small business portfolio page with no visual indicators of scam or malicious intent.
What our vision model saw
4 signalsExtremely dated web design reminiscent of the early 2000s
Simple navigation sidebar with plain text links
Content describes historical web development and open source tools
No aggressive marketing, urgency tactics, or fake trust badges visible
Intelligence
The domain was registered in May 1995 and remains under the same ownership. Our antivirus network returned zero detections across 92 engines. The hosting IP carries an abuse score of zero with no reports. Page content matches the site's documented history as the home of the original World Wide Web FAQ and multiple open-source projects. Web research found one positive review and confirmed the owner's role in early internet standards. No login forms, payment requests, or urgency tactics appear on the page.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for boutell.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- The domain was registered in 1995 and is owned by Boutell.Com, Inc., founded by Thomas Boutell.
- Thomas Boutell is a notable figure in internet history, having authored the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) specification and the gd graphics library.
- The site historically hosted widely used open-source software and web development tools like Mapedit and Wusage.
- Recent search results suggest the domain may now also function as a travel comparison portal or affiliate site, while maintaining its historical software archives.
- No credible reports of scams or malicious activity were found; the domain is frequently cited in legal and technical documentation (e.g., RFC 2083, F5 Networks licenses).
- Scrutiny Deskopen
"Boutell is a travel site at boutell.com that helps users compare options and book flights, stays, or experiences... Based on the structural, historical, and editorial signals, We rate Boutell Safe."
Founded in 1995 by Thomas Boutell, the creator of the gd graphics library and the PNG specification.
Our research located one positive review on an independent review site that rated the domain safe. No scam reports, consumer complaints, or negative mentions appeared in search results. The domain is referenced in technical standards documentation and open-source project histories.
Domain Timeline
- May 16, 1995Domain registered
First appeared in WHOIS records — 31 years old today.
- Jul 13, 2026Latest security review — Reviewed as safe
This scan re-ran every check and found no active threat signals.
boutell.com has operated for years with no threat signals in this review — a long, stable track record, though it is never a guarantee on its own.
Threat Detection
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Technical Details
domain · encryption · redirects · server reputation · referencedThe plumbing behind the site — who registered it, how it’s encrypted, where it’s hosted, and where it links out. A valid certificate or a calm server doesn’t mean the business is honest — scam sites pass these checks too. Use this to corroborate the verdict, not to overturn it.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No contact email found anywhere on the page.
- Phone number listed (1994-2016).
- Postal address visible on the page.
- Links to 10 social profiles.
Domain & Encryption
Server Reputation
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
What to do
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on boutell.com and not a lookalike like b-outell.com.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Final Verdict
Boutell.com is the long-running personal site of Thomas Boutell, creator of the gd graphics library and PNG specification. The domain has been registered since 1995 with clean scans and no scam reports. No payment or login forms are present.
Safety FAQ
Common questions, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on boutell.com, so it appears legitimate. All 92 antivirus engines we queried report it clean, and the domain is 31.2 years old, registered on May 16, 1995 — established domains are far less likely to be scams. Even so, always double-check the exact address in your browser, because phishing emails routinely spoof real, trusted domains like this one.
- boutell.com passed our automated checks with a trust score of 93/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged it at the time of the last scan, and its signals line up with an established, legitimate site. Treat any unexpected login prompt or payment request on it with the same caution you would anywhere.
- Yes — and this is worth understanding. Even trustworthy domains get spoofed in phishing emails (a fake message that only looks like it's from boutell.com), and legitimate sites are occasionally compromised on specific pages. A clean verdict means the site itself checks out today; it does not mean every email or link claiming to be from boutell.com is genuine. Always reach the site by typing the address yourself rather than clicking links in unexpected messages.
- No — all 92 antivirus and blocklist engines in our malware network currently report boutell.com as clean. That's a good sign, though antivirus coverage is only one of the many signals we weigh, and brand-new scam sites can appear clean before vendors catch up.
- No — boutell.com is not currently on the major browser blocklist feeds that Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge rely on. Note that blocklists can lag behind brand-new scam domains, so "not listed" is reassuring but not a guarantee on its own.
- boutell.com is 31.2 years old, registered on May 16, 1995 through TurnCommerce, Inc. DBA NameBright.com. A multi-year registration history is one of the stronger signals against a scam, though it's never a guarantee on its own — established domains can still be misused.
- Yes — boutell.com presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Let's Encrypt · YR2, valid for another 74 days. Important caveat: SSL only encrypts the connection between you and the site — it does not verify who runs it. Almost all scam sites now have valid SSL too, so a padlock alone never means "safe".
- boutell.com resolves to an IP operated by Unlimited Web Hosting UK LTD (Cloud Hosting Services) in GB (Data Center/Web Hosting/Transit). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad — but hosting that doesn't match a brand's claimed country, or that sits on networks known for abuse, is one of the many signals we weigh alongside the verdict above.
- This report is a record of the scan run on July 13, 2026, and the verdict reflects that point in time. Scam sites change fast — they can go live, get flagged, or vanish within days — so if you believe something about boutell.com has changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan that re-checks every signal from scratch and republishes an updated verdict.
User reviews & comments(0)
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