Site Advisors - McAfee, WOT, Others - What Do You Recommend?
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For the past 6 months or so I have been using McAfee Site Advisor which basically alerts the user to rogue or potentially dangerous web sites that may contain critters of some type. I have been pleased with McAfee thus far and haven’t had a problem. Yesterday reader David 
brought to my attention another called WOT [Web Of Trust]. He stated that MSA had indicated a site was OK, but Norton stated it contained a virus. Thus he recommended WOT.
WOT states the following:
Keep yourself safe from unreliable online vendors, spam, spyware, adware, and viruses. To join our community of individual web users fighting Internet scams, download the easy-to-use browser add-on.
Which is basically what McAfee does as well. Both McAfee Site Advisor and WOT have extensions and add ons for both IE and Firefox so there is something for everyone.
But what do you use? Do you have a site blocker that you can recommend? Let us know.
Comments welcome.
WOT site is here.
McAfee Site Advisor is here.
9 Comments
dabrace1984
April 7th, 2008
at 2:41pm
WOT sounds like “Circle of Trust” from “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers”.
–Doug
Ron Schenone
April 7th, 2008
at 3:50pm
Hi Doug,
LOL Good point!
Deborah Salmi
April 8th, 2008
at 12:51am
WOT has information on 18 million websites with four reputation components: trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. There are some differences between WOT and SiteAdvisor. WOT gets it site reputation data from two sources: users of the WOT community and trusted sources such as listings of phishing sites. Reputation data is recalculated every 30 minutes, so it is fresh.
Many Internet users who have used WOT and SiteAdvisor have noticed that user driven approach often gives more accurate ratings that automated ones employed by SiteAdvisor. Furthermore, WOT provides also reputation regarding “vendor reliability” and “child safety”, where human input is crucial.
WOT is free and it’s available for the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. Version 3 is coming out in a few weeks. Take a look: http://www.mywot.com
Ron Schenone
April 8th, 2008
at 4:41am
Hi Deborah,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing this information. It is appreciated.
Regards, Ron
Eddy
April 8th, 2008
at 11:42pm
Hi,
I have used WOT for more than 6 months now and I have found it useful. The ratings seem accurate and are kept up-to-date. Check out these:
http://clif-notes.blogspot.com/2007/12/wot-plugin-helps-identify-bad-websites.html
http://billmullins.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/want-the-best-in-free-internet-security-get-people-driven-security-with-wot/
Deborah Salmi
April 9th, 2008
at 12:07am
Ron,
We would like you to be a member of the WOT version 3 beta team. We are aiming to release it 15 April. Would you like to be included?
Deborah
http://www.mywot.com/
Ron Schenone
April 9th, 2008
at 4:40am
Hello Deborah,
Thank you. I would like to be included. I enjoy testing new software and was fortunate enough to test all the Vista releases, SP1 & SP3 for XP.
Please include me on your beta team.
TIA, Ron
PS I emailed you as well .
GOOSE
April 10th, 2008
at 5:22pm
WOT?
Geni Hanna
July 21st, 2008
at 7:36pm
I really think you should check out my website -
http://websitestoavoid.blogspot.com/
I use both WOT and Site Advisor to form my own opinion. I had tried something new called SiteHound and hated it. It was more trouble than it was worth!
Since Site Advisor checks for spam, bad downloads, bad links, third party cookies and then uses reviewers input and WOT, like you said, checks reliability, privacy, trustworthiness, and child safety - I use all of that along with my personal experiences and those of my friends, then I pass along my deduction.
Please take a look - perhaps we can put our heads together!