Is livescience.com legit or a scam?
Legitimate science news site operated by Future plc since 2004, with 25-year domain history, journalism awards, and clean reputation across all security and trust checks.
Analysis Summary
No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
MT Intelligence
Live Science is a well-established media property with a 25-year operational history and no malicious signals. Our antivirus network flagged zero threats across 92 engines, the hosting infrastructure is clean with zero abuse reports, and SSL is valid. The domain is owned by Future plc, a publicly listed British media company founded in 1985, which acquired Live Science in 2018. Independent evaluators rate it Pro-Science with high factual reporting and a clean fact-check record. The site has received multiple journalism awards including Online Journalism Awards and Webby Awards, and consistently ranks in top-science-website lists. No scam reports, phishing attempts, malware, or complaints appear in any search results. The combination of corporate ownership, long operational history, editorial awards, and zero security detections makes this a legitimate, trustworthy news source.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for livescience.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- livescience.com launched in 2004 as a popular science news site; acquired by Future plc (UK media company) in 2018 via purchase of Purch.
- Rated Pro-Science with High factual reporting by Media Bias Fact Check; clean fact-check record with no failed checks identified.
- Recipient of multiple journalism awards including Online Journalism Awards (2007) and Webby Awards (2008, 2010); consistently ranked in top science websites lists (2016–2023).
- Self-describes as one of the most trusted popular science websites; part of Future PLC with IPSO membership for editorial standards and complaints process.
- No scam reports, malware complaints, or significant negative feedback found across searches including Reddit; Trustpilot shows minimal reviews.
- Gridinsoft analysis gives 97/100 trust score with strong legitimacy signals; academic-style evaluations confirm author credentials and sourcing practices.
- Domain age of ~25 years (9198 days) aligns with established legitimate media operation; no evidence of phishing, fraud, or deceptive practices.
- Wikipediaopen
"Live Science was ranked in RealClearScience's "Top 10 Websites for Science" from 2016 to 2023. Awards include Online Journalism Awards and Webby Awards."
- Media Bias Fact Checkopen
"Overall, we rate Live Science a Pro-Science source based on support for the consensus of the science and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record. No failed fact checks."
- Gridinsoftopen
"We reviewed livescience.com and found strong legitimacy signals. Current checks point to an established low-risk profile, with a trust score of 97/100."
- Medium (credibility evaluation)open
"Live Science seems to be a credible source because the credentials of the author of the article are visible at the bottom of the web page... authors provide proper documentation of their articles and write unbiased reasoning."
Owned by Future plc (British listed company, founded 1985, LSE-listed). Live Science launched 2004; acquired via Purch in 2018. Operates from New York, London, Bath.
Our research confirmed Live Science as a legitimate, award-winning science news outlet. Wikipedia documents its recognition in RealClearScience's top-10 science websites (2016–2023) and multiple journalism awards. Media Bias Fact Check rates it Pro-Science with high factual reporting and a clean fact-check record with no failed checks. Independent trust evaluators assign a 97/100 trust score, citing strong legitimacy signals and established low-risk profile. Academic credibility evaluations confirm visible author credentials and proper documentation of articles. No scam reports, complaints, or negative feedback were found across consumer-review sites, Reddit, or general web searches. The site is owned by Future plc, a UK-listed media company that acquired Live Science in 2018 via purchase of Purch.
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
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.
- No postal address visible on the page.
- Phone number listed ((59 130 246).
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://livescience.com/
- 2200https://www.livescience.com/cross-domain
Server Reputation
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 livescience.com and not a lookalike like l-ivescience.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.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, 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 livescience.com. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- livescience.com passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 97/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. livescience.com presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Let's Encrypt · R12, expiring in 36 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- livescience.com is 25.2 years old, registered on 4/4/2001 through Lexsynergy Limited. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report livescience.com as clean.
- No. livescience.com is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- livescience.com resolves to an IP operated by Fastly, Inc. in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- Yes. livescience.com sits in the global top-100k on Cloudflare Radar, which means it has substantial real-world traffic. That does not automatically make it safe, but established brands almost always rank here and throwaway scam domains almost never do.
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