WOT trying out a forced contribute or pay approach??

This morning, I just did a search on Chrome (via Ixquick) and my WOT icons were replaced with a black pyramid with a white exclamation point. Hovering over the icon gave the results in a difficult to see box that pushed VERY hard for a donation ($3.99 I believe for a year.) Needless to say, I was royally ticked off. (I tried Firefox and it was ok.)

I was able to find a forum post from WOT https://www.mywot.com/en/forum/45536-WOT-freemium?utm_source=addon&utm_content=popup and learned I am apparently one of a lucky 5,000 that was picked for this "experiment".

After reading through the WOT forum post, I figured out that if I uninstalled WOT and then reinstalled, I might be back to normal. And I am. (I didn't think about showing what this surprising, unwanted popup looks like so I'm sorry to say I don't have a screen shot to display here in this post.)

Other than to bring this to everyone's attention, I also wanted to know if there is a safe alternative to WOT. I haven't ever rated any sites for WOT but I have promoted the heck out of it and set up countless machines with it. How much more do they want? Apparently my wallet too!

 

Well, reading the WOT announcement carefully I don't see anything wrong on this, at least partly. The power and sense of WOT is in the rating of websites by users. The more users' inputs the more accurate and better results in ratings. So I understand that they want to encourage users not just to use WOT but also to contribute to ratings. It may seem nasty but remember ... nothing and never is for free. So you don't need to pay but you need to contribute. It's our choice how we will tackle this campaign ...

 

this is not a good idea

 

Everyone needs money to live. Why is this surprising? Can you work for free forever?

 

User contributions is its weakest link. 99% of the reviews are from unqualified people or people that have no idea what they are even talking about.

 

I am soooo gonna enjoy this thread.

THIS! Randumb people rate websites negatively just because they saw someone else previously rated it negatively. LOLWTH?

Anyway, to the OP, although I myself wasn't satisfied with Bitdefender TrafficLight in Chrome, a lot of people seem to have no problem with it. Of course, if you ask me then I'll say BD's database >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WOT's liek/dizliek rators.

 

This comment made me chuckle: "Any other website would already have a red WOT rating for doing something like this...."

Anyway, I hope this doesn't encourage ratings from people who have no intention of doing a good job.

 

BD's Trafficlight, as has been said, and take a look at Webutation. It' includes several ratings, WOT is one of them.

http://www.webutations.org/

 

Some may even rate a website negatively only because they don't like it.

 

One sheep, two why it's so wrong for sites to ask for money? Bread don't happen magically!
Mrk

 

Anyway, despite I hate WOT so much I'd say that they should apply a better freemium model. Perhaps limiting the categories in the free version (Child Safety category is quite potential to be put in the paid version). OTOH, spread the wings and add more categories in the paid version. With their current plan, people will give ratings without much thought and verification. They'll just rate for the sake of getting out of the fee requirement. And in the end, it will get from inaccurate ratings to derptastic armageddon of the world wide web.

 

A few things to be considered before WOT is condemned ... WOT is freeware, yes it's freeware regardless on their recent campaign encouraging users to rate sites. It's a smart initiative and very good deal for users imo, you don't need to pay if you rate. I dare to say that actually they don't count with any financial profit from this initiative, they rather want to profit from getting rates. If not, they would release a paid version containing some additional features etc. WOT does great job and even a few security solutions rely on their ratings (for instance 360 IS, BD Traficklights and maybe others). Of course that it cannot be completely on par with AV solutions that use additional modules (HIPS, AV definitions, cloud etc.) which enhance security against rogue sites.

 

Thanks for the suggestions of Webutation and TrafficLight. I'll check them out.

 

i don't use WOT and never will but i don't see nothing wrong to work and get pay, no1 work for free

 

There's nothing wrong with getting paid. What's wrong is their freemium model which will make WOT's ratings quality even worse.