Web of Trust - How to Protect Yourself Against Malicious Websites

There are two things that really drive me mad when it comes to the internet, the first being those people who spam guestbooks and leave spam comments on articles, promoting their websites, and second those websites that are infested with viruses or spyware, just waiting for you to visit so that they can infect your computer.

There is a way that you can deal with this, by using a plugin called Web Of Trust (WOT), which works on most browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox.

How Can Web Of Trust Help Protect You?

First of all, if you have Web Of Trust installed as a plug in on your browser, if you try to access any web site that has been rated as dangerous (Spam, Virus, Not Child Friendly etc), the Web Of Trust button on your browser will show either Green for safe, or Red for danger, and a popup may also appear if the site is dangerous, giving you the option of continuing to the site or not.

This is extremely useful and provides an extra line of defense against malicious web sites that have already been identified as dangerous.

Second, you can register with Web Of Trust, and rate web sites yourself, adding to the worldwide team of members who rate web sites as both good or bad.

As a member, you can rate any web site, and add a rating category plus if you want a comment about the site. For example, you might rate Associated Content, assign it a category of "Good" or "Informative" etc, and a comment like "This is a site for writers to contribute articles". Or something like that.

But there is something else that is wonderful about Web Of Trust - payback...

How Can You Deal With Spam Using Web Of Trust?

Imagine that someone leaves a comment on one of your Associated Content articles, a comment on your blog, or on a message on your Guestbook, and that comment is obviously spam, and the comment is only there to advertise their web site.

Yes I know it's hard to imagine, it hasn't happened to you before, ever, right!

Well, click on the link for their website, then click on the Web Of Trust button at the top of your browser (which is installed by the plugin).

Here you can view the scorecard for this website, and you can now rate this website yourself in the following four categories:

Trustworthiness
Vendor Reliability
Privacy
Child Safety

You can also optionally leave a comment, by clicking on the option to Leave My Comment, in which case a new tab will open allowing you to rate the site in one of the following categories:

Good Site
Useful, Informative
Entertaining
Good Customer Experience
Child Friendly
Spam
Annoying Ads Or Popups
Bad Customer Experience
Phishing Or Other Scams
Malicious Content, Viruses
Browser Exploit
Spyware Or Adware
Adult Content
Hateful, Violent or Illegal Content
Ethical Issues
Useless
Other

For these sites where links are left on my blogs or articles and are obviously Spam sites, almost all of which have been set up in the last few days, and often have similar formats, I leave a comment identifying them as Spam sites, and a comment which read something like below:

This site is being promoted by the use of comments left on blogs that have no relevance to either the content of the web site, the content of the blog or the article where the comment is left. Such web sites could contain malware and/or viruses and are potentially unsafe to use.

Having left your comment, close the tab, and in the tab where the spam website was previously showing, you will see a warning message:

WARNING! You have given this site a poor rating, which triggered a warning.

Should the site have already been flagged by other members, a relevant warning will also appear.

Now, the next time anyone running the Web Of Trust plugin in their browser and trying to access this web site will be warned, and as a result the web site will lose traffic and this will cost the spammer dearly.

What Are The Limitations Of Web Of Trust?

The biggest limitation is that you currently need to have the plugin installed in your browser for the warnings to appear. You can help to overcome this if you find it useful by plugging Web Of Trust to your family, friends and other contacts, and generally spreading the word about it.

To give you an idea of the popularity of this plugin, it has been downloaded over 10 million times by Firefox users alone!

How To Install Web Of Trust In Internet Explorer

At the top of your browser screen, click on Tools, then Manage Add-ons. A popup window will appear. At the bottom left of the window, click on Find More Toolbars And Extensions. A new window will appear. At the top right, where it says "Search The Gallery", type "WOT", and then install the Add-on.

How To Install Web Of Trust In Firefox

At the top of your browser screen, click on Tools, then Add-ons, then in the popup that appears, click on Browse All Add-ons. A new Tab will open in your browser. Search for "Web Of Trust", click on the Install button, and Voila!

You can also install the Plugin directly from the Web Of Trust web site.

I just know that I feel a lot safer having Web Of Trust installed, and I feel a lot happier as well knowing that I have the power to rate down spam web sites, and to help reduce the effectiveness of anyone who spams to promote their sites. I can also give good ratings to sites that I do like.

If you have used Web Of Trust before, or if you think that this is a good or bad idea, please leave a comment to let not just me but any readers know what you think. I for one would be pleased to see this plugin more widely used, and to even have it installed as a standard on browsers.

Sources:

Web Of Trust

CNET Review

Wikipedia