Web of Trust (WOT): A Different Approach to Online Security

click to enlarge

WOT will not save you from all online threats. In this age, where users have to undertake layered security defenses with an antivirus, firewall and anti-spyware, WOT sits as a different layer. What it does is basically is to check the links you see on your web browser and check their trustworthiness, vendor liability, privacy and child safety. With the sum of all these, WOT assigns a rating which changes from green (trustworthy) and red (warning). When you open a website, you will see a small window that says “Trust” or “Warning”, which gives you an idea of the website in terms of security.

WOT uses both the users’ ratings and the trusted lists, such as phishing website links to do its job (and it does its job good.)

The web has become a common attack vector and consequently the kind of protection offered by WOT has become a necessity if you want to be able to surf safely and avoid internet security risks (see our article The Top 5 Reasons Hackers Use the Web for Attacks for information about why the web has become so popular with hackers and cybercriminals).

I definitely recommend this add-on for your Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome browser. While your anti-virus, anti-malware and firewall will take care of what you are not aware of in your computer WOT adds another layer before you are visiting a malicious website. Plus, the number of indexed websites is increasing, making WOT present more accurate results in the future.

If your antivirus and/or anti-malware programs offer link checking like WOT, then you may consider the software unnecessary. However, I believe in this world of online threats, any additional layer of security is not a redundant thing (except using different programs for the same job, i.e. two virus scanners.)

ShuURL is a URL shortening service that uses WOT to alert people that a link may lead to a dangerous website before they click it. To find out more about how it works, read our article ShuURL: Safe URL Redirection using Web of Trust.

Would you like to read more reviews? Look around Bright Hub and you’ll find reviews of numerous other leading security solutions including SpamTitan, GFI MailEssentials, Atek Secure Password Organizer, GFI LANguard, Norton Internet Security, Kaspersky Internet Security, ESET Smart Security, McAfee Site Advisor, Norman Internet Security Suite and Undelete.