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What's your take on WOT (Web of Trust)? Any good alternatives?

Jan 15, 2012 4:43 AM

So yesterday I was helping my uncle renew his Norton subscription -- he had the Internet Security suite and then upgraded to Norton 360. Well the link checker for the 360 is not compatible with Firefox or Chrome, whereas the Internet Security was. So I started looking for some alternatives to show him.

I came across "WOT" or Web of Trust and began using it myself to see how it works. It seems like the link scanning system is based of community feedback and reviews rather than some type of security scan or something like that. What's your opinion of WOT? Are there any good alternatives (that don't require a different AntiVirus)?

jyoz22 jyoz22

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I use it and recommend it.

As with any community-based effort, it isn't 100% effective (but neither are the "link-scanner" features). Since it's free, I think it is worth installing.

hackman2007 hackman2007
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I love WOT... I use avast for antivirus and it also has its "avast web rep" which does a similar thing but I like WOT more

miquinn miquinn
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I, too, use WOT. I would like to see a mobile version for use on phones and tablets.

Regardless, it's a good program, and hasn't steered me wrong yet.

okham okham
vote-for4vote-against

@hackman2007 @miquinn @okham: Thanks for the responses and recommendation.

Since I'm new to using this I started searching about it and had concerns because of several results calling it the "Web of Mistrust" and saying it was an extortion -- whereby good sites got bad ratings and the owners would be required to pay to get a good rating.

Anyways, I take that you guys are long time users and are happy with it. Since I installed it I've kept it on my computer and I'm probably gonna suggest it to my uncle. He's pretty much a PC newbie and liked the idea that he could be warned which sites to stay away from.

jyoz22 jyoz22
vote-for3vote-against

The issue I have with it is that it is community driven, and malicious users can alter a sites reputation. Happened to my employer's website, I'm certain it was a competitor who was trying to slander us, although it's hard to say for 100% certain. The rep on WOT has been cleaned up, but you can see how it could cause some problems when it's not based on actual security scans. Kind of like how deals from certain sites here are almost immediately down voted into oblivion even if they are good deals.

ganzhimself ganzhimself
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@jyoz22: yeah I've never seen a case of that

miquinn miquinn
vote-for2vote-against

Web of mistrust, that's amusing. Hadn't heard that before.

Most of the red ring sites that I see show up on google searches (where I would expect); I've never seen a site I knew to be safe rated even as yellow. But I can see where what happened to @ganzhimself's company could be problematic. There are unscrupulous sorts out there...just look at travel review sites.

okham okham
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Yeah, apparently on their Wikipedia page it also shows that there was a lawsuit because of the bad rep some companies received -- for slander. However, it was dismissed.

I'm starting to like it because you can actually click to see why it has bad ratings and look at the "Scorecard." However, I think I would have preferred something that would be able to provide "security scan" results.

jyoz22 jyoz22

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