Alternatives to WOT?

After some issues with SeaMonkey 2.10 I have decided to make a new profile with some differences to my usual extensions. The WOT plug-in has some compatibility issues & interferes with other status bar icons. So I am not going to install it. I have NoScript, RequestPolicy, ABP & Flagfox. Does anyone have any viable alternatives to something like WOT?

 

WOT is Waste Of Time, try McAfee SiteAdvisor
http://www.siteadvisor.com/
IMO much better

 

I used to use McAfee as my AV, so I had SiteAdvisor installed once. I actually preferred WOT. I can get WOT & SiteAdvisor's results from Flagfox/Maxthon Flag (depending which browser I am using). It's just that it's been such a long time that I have surfed with WOT, that I feel a little naked without it. I'm not that convinced of its efficacy any more though. I can probably learn to live without it.

 

Trafficlight.

 

Privacy and slowdown issues, I'd pass. I honestly don't think there are any suitable alternatives, Dave. Of course I think the "WOT way" is flawed to begin with. Perhaps something like AVG's Linkscanner?

 

I'm not sure if Mozdev have any compatible versions of that.

 

I think that Linkscanner was compatible with SeaMonkey at one time. If I remember I wasn't too impressed with it. It seemed to be better on Chrome. I reckon I can live without WOT. I can get WOT/SiteAdvisor ratings (for what they're worth) with Flagfox anyway. NoScript & RequestPolicy should hopefully stop any dodgy scripts running if I land on a compromised page. I think that I just felt psychologically safer looking at that little green circle. LOL

 

Comodo use to have a browser plugin that I believe worked similar to Mcafee Site advisor. I don't know if they still offer it as separate feature or if they even offer it at all anymore. It may be worth looking into. There are not many replacements for WOT, but here are a few -http://techpp.com/2009/02/10/top-6-alternatives-mcafee-siteadvisor-browse-safe/

 

Does anyone know if Trusteer Rapport ranks sites or is it primarily for banking security? Another options is WSA. WSA offers phishing protection, and checks sites before you even visit them. It was formerly the SafeOnline feature from Prevx. I'm not sure if it works with Seamonkey though. It would probably be the next best thing to WOT or McAfee Site Advisor. The only thing is you would have to purchase a license for WSA Security Essentials. I don't believe they still offer it as a free feature for those that have Facebook accounts. I could be wrong though so you could look into that option.

 

Don't know if it's viable or not, but avast! has WebRep, that installs with their AV.

I had been using both WOT and TL, but recently dropped TL due to privacy concerns. I did like TL, and I hope they address the way they handle their business, so I can re-install the Chrome extension.
Meanwhile, I'm satisfied with WOT. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's suitable as a reputation indicator, in my view.

 

IMO there are better alternatives than site advisors, which are an unreliable indication as to a website's safety status. There are two use cases to consider.

For general web surfing of websites of unknown safety status, the primary goal is to prevent the system from being infected and to prevent data stealing by a compromised browser session. The best option for this is to simply sandbox the browser; a tightly configured Sandboxie is all that is needed. Using Sandboxie, the safety status of the websites visited isn't that important. As an alternative to virtualizing the browser, policy restriction applications such as DefenseWall (32 bit) or AppGuard (32/64 bit) can also be effectively deployed.

For online banking and shopping security where you are visting trusted websites, the safety rating of the website isn't in question (if it is, it shouldn't be trusted with personal details) but authenticity verification is still relevant. The primary goal here is to prevent the system from compromising the browser session if the system should already be infected with a keylogger, banking trojan, etc. If this a concern then, as Cutting Edgetech suggested, Trusteer Rapport or WSA's Identity Protection shield may help. As these kind of browser protection utilities also put the browser inside a protective bubble, they can't be used at the same time as an application sandbox like Sandboxie but this doesn't really matter as banking and shopping security is a different use case from general web surfing.

 

For me personally my concern is protection from phishing, and social engineering. I do a lot of online shopping, Banking, Business related activity, and many other activities which requires me to give out my personal info. I believe i'm good at judging if a website is legit or not, but I would like the added security of sites being flagged or blocked immediately if they are phishing for my info. A webpage does not need to be infected to steal your info if you willingly give it to them. I don't really worry about getting infected since my setup is extremely secure.

 

Alternative...

Web Security Guard - http://www.websecurityguard.com/

Not sure if it'll work with the latest and greatest, but worth a shot.

 

OK thanks for the info.

 

Is there a stand-alone WebRep?

It's not that I'm anti-WOT or anything, it's that SeaMonkey extensions are going through a strange phase & WOT complicates things.

 

That looks interesting, thanks.

 

Thank you for a detailed & thought provoking reply. I've been considering sandboxing/sandboxes/shielding for a while, although I'll have to do more research I think. I think that you are correct about site advisors, I do have NoScript, ABP & RequestPolicy. Flagfox can give me some site advising as well.

 

What do you base than on. Websites are usually give a ranking sooner on WOT than SiteAdvisor, and also I consider the the information on WOT to be more trustworthy.

But having said that, I don't like either and prefer to use my own judgement.

 

AVG LinkScanner Surf-Shield - component that blocks exploits - is not bad (based in my own testing, of course ). But, the Search-Shield component, not only it may not work with all web browsers, as it also kind of sucks. Search-Shield is based on a blacklist, and unfortunately AVG doesn't seem to make great efforts to make it better.

BitDefender TrafficLight would be a nice addition, if one is using Firefox or Chrome, but due to its privacy issues, I wouldn't use it. I hope BitDefender solves the privacy issues with it. It's really bad it's like that, because it's actually a great extension and it did its job quite well.

 

I think some people use the Panda url filter as a stand alone and are happy with it. Another may be the k9 web filter which seems pretty popular.

 

I've been a WOT user for years, on both browsers, IE and FF.

So far, the WOT add-on for IE 9 on Windows 7, 32-bit has been working flawlessly but on FF 12 [and now FF 13], the newest incarnation of this add-on [known as WOT 20120515 for FF] will not install under any circumstances on FF 12 or 13 on Windows 7, x86. [It will install on FF 12 or 13 on Windows XP, though].

This new WOT add-on for FF will remove the old one, and then will attempt to install on FF but it will hang or stall while installing and I have to abort the installation and re-start FF.

I don't understand what's wrong with it but I asked the same question at WOT forums but some there say they have not been able to replicate the issue there, so I'm now considering McAfee Site Advisor.


Carlos

 

This article might help, dave: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-internet-safety-check.htm

 

Just to clarify what I was saying, I'm in favour of the use of site advisors as an additional guide to a website's safety rating providing the limitations that all blacklisting products share are taken into account when deciding how best to secure the browser. There are two approaches to link scanning, both of which may be combined within an individual link scanner utility.

Active scanners scan each link in real-time looking for exploit code. This approach is primarily aimed at preventing a compromised browser from infecting the system. With a properly secured (i.e. sandboxed) browser, real-time link scanning isn't absolutely essential and can slow down browsing. It is important that pages are only scanned when the links are clicked. There was an issue at one time (now resolved) where a particular link scanner scanned every link displayed in a search engine results page for exploits. This not only annoyed web masters with an unnecessarily high volume of traffic on their web servers but it also exposed the end user to their system potentially having visited an illegal website just because the link got displayed by a search engine.

Passive scanners do a database lookup for a link to get a safety rating. Whilst not real-time, the approach is more flexible in that it is reputation based and the safety rating can be broken down into several categories based on user feedback. This fits very well with the online banking and shopping use case where it is important to establish the credentials of a website before conducting financial transactions. Website safety ratings based on the experience of other customers are very useful.

Personally I prefer passive to active link scanning. My favourite link scanner used to be WOT but I stopped using it when it stopped working with a recent version of Firefox on my system. I don't mind link scanners that install a button on the toolbar but I refuse to use any link scanner that wants to install its own toolbar. Currently I am using the web reputation filter within avast! but I may go back to WOT in the future if I can get it working with Firefox.

EDIT: Just tried WOT again out of curiosity and it now seems to be working again with Firefox on my system so I'll probably keep it.

 

WOT works fine for me on Waterfox/Firefox & seems to be relatively stable & bug free. I know people have had problems. On SeaMonkey it is a different story altogether & the WOT plug-in interferes with the GUI (although it actually works) & stops icons being used on the status bar amongst other problems. I'm not the only person who's had this problem with WOT either. I think I can live without it. In fact, I have seriously been having doubts about WOT & its overall efficacy anyway.