I'm just curios, does anyone still use WOT? I know they were accused of selling anonymised data. I believe the extension has been back in the Chrome Store and Mozilla add-ons for a while now.
Yeah, good old WOT. It was good until AVs and ad blockers took over its endeavour. Who cares about Google search rating today, they all rely on AVs and ad blockers instead. WOT is redundant now, I honestly think but I have a good reminiscence of it.
any adblocker is using some kind of blocking lists for blocked servers in WOT. and they can do more, so WOT is more than futile. and ofc they ruined themselves with selling data. maybe they collect now anonymous buts that neither nor relevant.
Yes I still use it, but not for blocking features (never have). I use it for the intended purpose of reading and submitting reports about why a site is good or bad. In no way do AV or ad-blockers replace WOT. AV and ad-blockers don't tell you why a site is blocked or not, and don't tell you anything about user experience with a site, company, services or products. The issue of selling user data or not, is not an issue if you never get an account in the first place. Just ignore the prompts. You don't need to login to use it. Alternatively ignore the extension completely and just add WOT search to your browsers list of search options.
That pales in comparison... The most egregious aspect of WOT was (still is?) the fallacious and unqualified Gold and Platinum users, so-called experienced and dedicated volunteers, who were granted free reign of a "Mass rating" tool wherein unlimited numbers of Web pages could be blacklisted using databases of suspect host domains. If one domain was alleged to distribute adult content, spam or false ads and not necessarily malware, every domain within an IP range was blacklisted. Two such users, unnamed for this discussion, were egomaniac Platinum users who purloined the reputation of hundreds of thousands of legitimate Web sites. One of these users is called out as G*** here: https://www.ghacks.net/2012/07/29/webmasters-verify-your-websites-web-of-trust-reputation-rating/ and an observation... Negative ratings and commentary were from commercial adversaries and clueless WOT narcissist thugs who dominated that once interesting, useful and then devolving into a totally unmoderated web service. This is a teachable example of anarchy in the guise of "meritocracy" and "security." Whether or not these "experienced and dedicated volunteers" currently figure into WOT's methodology is irrelevant to me. They will never regain my trust. Cheers.
Yes, while I presume the ratings may have been accurate, a lot of comments on websites were very subjective. For websites which published some harmless PUPs, you would have people insisting that this software was malware. It was the same with SiteAdvisor (now named WebAdvisor) when they allowed discussions about websites.
I went to the WOT website and had a look at ratings for a few websites, and it seems that nothing's changed. Many years ago, I got banned from posting on the SiteAdvisor website a few times, because I made posts refuting the false claims made about some websites containing malware. There were even people claiming that the PC Tools website contained malware.
I stopped using WOT a long time ago. Surprised it's still around, like @roger_m I just checked it out with a few web sites. Came to the same conclusion. Ratings are based on opinions not on reality.
...and they all stink. I haven't used this in a decade. Too many resources used and not effective enough.
Yeah, I think it's about a decade since I last used it. It was very popular & fashionable for a while. But so were the Spice Girls ...
I used WOT for some time then totally forgot it (until I read this thread). I still fondly remember the Spice Girls
