Wot's Wrong With WOT?
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

OK. First we're going to admit something: We have, in the past, recommended WOT, but we don't recommend it anymore.

A few years ago, most popular browsers (I.E., Firefox, Chrome, etc.) began including anti-phishing toolbars. And surprisingly, for the most part they work pretty well, and with very few false positives. These anti-phishing features alert users when they click links in phishing email and end up on a site designed to look like a real credit card, bank, or online-payment site. The purpose of these kinds of sites is to dupe users into offering up their personal information, passwords, usernames, etc. for the sole purpose of stealing money.

And then there's a genre of browser security tools called Safe-Surfing toolbars. The most popular of these is McAfee's Site Advisor and WOT (Web Of Trust). Neither are perfect, neither provide any better protection from phishing sites (in our opinion) than the protection that is built-in to most of the new generation of browser. Site Advisor has its share of false positives - but the number of false-positives reported by WOT, in our opinion, is completely unacceptable. There are so many sites rated as dangerous that the word dangerous loses its meaning. But the way the world works, and the way human nature is, the more you scare people the more you can get them to do what you want. In WOT's case, what they want you to do is download and install their toolbar. It's a shame that people assume the security tool that provides the most warnings - real or not - is the one that works the best. This is wrong on many levels.

WOT is a typical example of the irritating paradigm that seems to be true of just about every software program from Paintshop Pro to Firefox - the longer they exist the more their developers think that adding more features and making it do more is better. This, of course, is not true. Firefox was once a much better and faster browser than the new, improved version. Of course, Firefox would deny that. Newer is better - so logic would dictate.

But this is not about Firefox or the myriad of software programs that started off great and then got "improved" so they don't work as well as they used to. When security programs release new "improved" versions there's an inherent danger that the improvements will lead to them find more problems, to warn of more potential risks, to alert users to more dangers. While this sounds beneficial on the surface, it can and does result in security programs alerting users about questionable - even nonexistent - threats.

When the WOT safe-browsing toolbar was first released, we tested it thoroughly and recommended it - and endorsed it. As time passed we began to see a disturbing trend - WOT began warning its users of non-existents threats - and some very questionable ones.

In the world of antivirus software, false-positives (detecting threats that aren't) is considered a flaw. Antispyware has a little more wiggle room since no one seems to agree on a definition of spyware.

Then there are "safe-surfing" toolbars. There is so much wiggle room and subjectivity when determining what constitutes a "safe" site, a "questionable" site, and a "dangerous" site, that any safe-surfing toolbar's usefulness is questionable, especially one like WOT.

Here's an example of how "improvements" to WOT have rendered it far less useful than it once was - WOT considers almost every advertising network - dangerous (except Google's Adsense - which we'll get to in a moment).

This is a very unwise approach to "safe-surfing". Automatically putting ad networks in the dangerous or questionable category tells us that WOT is more interested in the number of sites and threats detected than actually trying to provide an accurate and reliable product.

WOT knows as well as we do, that, in general, people think the more problems or threats a program finds, the better it is working. This is, of course, not necessarily true. It would only be true if the problems and threats it detects are real. There's just no way that most advertising networks pose a threat to users - yet WOT warns users about advertising networks using exactly the same warnings that WOT uses to warn users about real dangers - like phishing sites.

Another problem has is its inconsistency. Google's Adsense and DoubleClick are both ad networks owned and operated by Google. Google bought Doubleclick a couple of years ago. WOT rates Google Adsense "safe" and DoubleClick's as "dangerous".

The truth is that Adsense advertises some products, like SmileyCentral, which most spyware software recognizes as a threat; conversely it is also true that DoubleClick advertises some excellent products, like Dell computers. If WOT was really accurate it would define the products advertised - individually - and not generalize. But its technology is based on arbitrary ratings and databases - some are very questionable.

Its arbitrary ratings and its generalizations make WOT an unreliable tool for helping users determine, accurately and reliably, if sites are safe or not. WOT reminds us of the boy who cried wolf once too often.

We are aware that the temptation to use WOT is compelling, but if you can't rely on it, why use it. Safe surfing toolbars are here to stay. And we are all too aware that there's a lot of money to be made by scaring people. We can only hope that as time goes by, more and more people will take the time to educate themselves about the real dangers on the Web (and there are many) and not rely on safe surfing toolbars - especially WOT - to protect them. Most current browsers have anti-phishing capabilities built-in, and for the most part, they work well and can protect users from accidently entering personal information on phishing sites.

Wot's wrong with WOT is simple - it has become an unreliable and arbitrary safe-surfing toolbar that causes users unnecessary alarm, worry and inconvenience. We don't recommend it because we can't rely on it to provide accurate information. Too many false alarms; that’s wot's wrong with WOT.

As for safe-surfing toolbars in general, we don't recommend any. Use an up-to-date browser with anti-phishing features. Don't click links in emails that come from financial sites - banks, credit card companies, online-payment sites. Don't click links in any spam email. Use good, constantly updated antivirus, and use two good antispyware programs. Safe-surfing toolbars are too much like spam filters - they're too given to subjective evaluation, and there's too much temptation to grow a safe-surfing toolbar's user base by scaring users unnecessarily by rating sites as dangerous when they are not.

Remember - with security programs, more is not necessarily better - but too many people seem to think it is.