Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Web of Trust

So far the most thing I wrote on this blog is a about security application, specially the free one, such as Free Anti-Virus, Free Anti-Spyware/Malware, Firewall, etc.

Well this time I'm gonna write something called Web of Trust or simply people called it WOT, an add-on program for your web browser, well not all web browser, but it support the most web browser that most people use : Mozilla Firefox, Chrome and... yes, the old very known for it instability, slowness and it's unsafe-tines, the Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Have you ever heard of it? or probably already using it? Probably most of us have already heard or probably already using WOT, but the surprising fact is, that the number of people who never ever heard of it is equally as much as the sand in the sea... Well it's o.k if you never heard of WOT, but how about McAfee SiteAdvisor (MSA)? or Norton Safe Web Ratings(NSWR)? See, some people still doesn't understand what it's all about. But, even for some people who do know what I'm talking about doesn't found it's useful enough and refuse to use it, but please do listen to what most expert say "prevention is better than cure!!!".

So, what is WOT? and how does it protects me from being infected? Well, WOT is simply a tool that rate web site for it's trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and/or child safety of the website. It calculates the reputation of a website through a combination of user ratings and data from trusted sources. WOT uses a traffic-light style rating system to show the safe-tines level of a website (Red, Yellow & Green, there is also Grey for website that they haven't rated yet).

Why do I choose WOT instead of McAfee or Norton or other similar tool? Simply because it's the best one that I have ever used, and because MSA and NSWR come in a bundle with the McAfee or Norton product if you decided to buy one, but if you like to try them, you could download it for free from their website, but with limitation ofcourse, you'll HAVE TO PAY if you want to use the full future of it. Another reason why I choose WOT, is because I found some compatibility issue using MSA or NSWR, so WOT come as my top pick.










When you install WOT, it would directly open a new tab to their web site http://www.mywot.com/, then you will be given a choice about it's setting (I would advise you to choose the basic setting than the advance setting, cause I found that, if you choose the advance setting sometimes, even it rarely so, it would slowdown your browsing experience).
After the setting process you will face some registry form asking you to fill some form in order to joint their community, but you could just simply ignore it and just close the web-page if you're not interested.

If you like to use WOT here's where you could download it:
1. From the collaboration page between WOT and Panda Security
2. Directly from Web of Trust website

If you like to try some other similar tool, here is some list of it:
1. McAfee SiteAdvisor
2. Norton Safe Web Ratings
3. AVG LinkScanner
4. BitDefender Anti-Phishing Free Edition
5. LinkExtend

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