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In this week's security-themed freeware roundup, I called out Mozilla Firefox for not being that secure of a web browser as compared to the virtualization-friendly Google Chrome. And that's still true. Unpleasant web sites can inject and exploit all sorts of nastiness in Firefox--not as badly as, say, the security lapses of Internet Explorer, but Firefox still contains the potential to open a door to your system's innermost workings. If this happens because of some hosted exploit or less-than-friendly extension you've downloaded, you're in for a world of hurt. Google Chrome, on the other hand, requires a separate exploit to somehow break its virtualization in tandem with malware that attacks the browser as a whole. The latter is doable, but the former is much more difficult to accomplish via web-based tricks.
So how, then, do you make for the most secure browsing experience possible if you're a die-hard Firefox user? Three words: web of Trust. This popular Firefox add-on uses the power of a five-million-user community, as well as a host of recommendations by site listings and phishing alerts, to rate the security of theweb sites you want to visit. If you're about to step into a trap, you get a big, fancy alert window telling you that the site you're about to click on might not be the best choice from a security standpoint. In short, this is one of the most preventative techniques you can use to protect yourself against unknown web threats!
How does it work? Simple. Install the add-on. That's all you have to do. From there, you'll see little icons whenever you perform a search on one of the major Web search engines. You can check out exactly what said icons mean here, but for the most part, they're structured like a traffic light: Green is a site that's been validated as "good" by members of the community, yellow represents a site that you should pay a little more attention to security-wise, and red--like Mordor--is a place you simply shouldn't venture.
If you want to take part in the ratings system yourself, that's easy too! Just click on the Web of Trust icon now in your browser window, then rate the current site you're on using the add-on's adjustable sliders. Maintaining comprehensive web security is as easy as that.
Every Tuesday, Maximum PC picks a new Firefox add-on as its favorite of the week. Have a nifty extension that you can't live without? Twitter David Murphy @acererak with your latest suggestions.
Comments are closed on this article
Deborah
December 03, 2009 at 5:59am
David, We appreciate being chosen as Firefox add-on of the week. Thank you!
I am happy that you pointed out that ratings come heavily from our user community, supplemented by trusted sources. It’s our community that makes the difference between WOT and other safe browsing tools.
One commenter noticed some discrepancy between WOT reputation ratings and those from Norton. This can sometimes be true, especially when you are looking at aspects such as the reliability of an online shop or content appropriate for children. Human input is vital because automated scans can’t tell you about shady vendors who don’t send your order on time, or if the content on a site is not what you want your 8 year old to see.
Good news for Internet Explorer and Google Chrome users – WOT is available for those browsers too. Look for announcements about Chrome extensions soon!
Safe surfing,
Deborah
Web of Trust
mdkplus
December 02, 2009 at 5:48pm
I've noticed when searching that some sites WOT says are safe are givin a red disk by Norton, and vice versa. It's as if you are at a stoplight, and one light is red, and one is green... what do you do? so then it is ultimately up to me to just take a guess if it's safe or not. Hey, I have a better chance (50/50) than if I'm picking one of Howie Mandell's magic suitcases......
Cache
December 02, 2009 at 4:39pm
Somehow I had visions of errant 4chan /b/tards deciding to mass mark several bad websites as good by sheer volume of numbers.
GoldenMonkey
December 02, 2009 at 3:40pm
So are programs like these similar to Mcafee's SiteAdvisor and Norton's Safe Web?
dreamsburnred
December 02, 2009 at 3:47pm
But WoT pulls from digg, spam cop, Wikipedia, delicious, malware domain list and others so it knows who is bad and good without users .
Hoster of http://canadiantechblogger.com
Colt725
December 02, 2009 at 3:38pm
It warns you that a site may not be what you think it is. You always have a choice ...to open the site or not open the site.
PawBear
December 02, 2009 at 3:32pm
I removed it after I discovered too many legit sites marked as dangerous. It merely interfered with surfing. It strikes me that all these systems, SiteAdvisor, etc., have their shortcomings. I'll rely on my antivirus and common sense. However noobs need all the help they can get.
I Jedi
December 02, 2009 at 12:57pm
I always use WOT, and I highly recommend it to e v e r y o n e... I believe its a great layer of security for defending your identity and your computer. I recently built a new computer for some people, and one thing that I installed was WOT on their computer.
