WOT vs McAfee Siteadvisor
Jim S
They both claim to detect dodgy sites and indicate this either on the
search list or on a symbol on FF.
They both seem to have sites in common, but some are different.
WOT seems to be based on user recommendations, so IMO would be open to
abuse and Siteadvisor invites submissions, but there are many sites it has
never seen.
I would like some comments please from folk who have used either/both.
--
Jim S
Tyneside UK
Ron K.
Go to Google Groups and search the archive of this group for "Siteadvisor".
It has a history of support requests that You may not be aware of.
--
Ron K.
Who is General Failure, and why is he searching my HDD?
Kernel Restore reported Major Error used BSOD to msg the enemy!
Jim S
> Jim S on 10/27/2008 9:10 AM, keyboarded a reply:
>> I am comparing these two addon/plugins.
>> They both claim to detect dodgy sites and indicate this either on the
>> search list or on a symbol on FF.
>> They both seem to have sites in common, but some are different.
>> WOT seems to be based on user recommendations, so IMO would be open to
>> abuse and Siteadvisor invites submissions, but there are many sites it has
>> never seen.
>> I would like some comments please from folk who have used either/both.
>
> Go to Google Groups and search the archive of this group for "Siteadvisor".
> It has a history of support requests that You may not be aware of.
Thanks Ron I might do that. It was the WOT site that I have just
discovered. I found it strange that it seems to depend entirely on user
feed back. Still I got a long reply in another group and print it here as
it answers my question
-------------------------------
Quote:
SiteAdvisor has part of its rating from McAfee and part from user
voting. The user voting is too often not very professional in its
analysis. The user claims a pest came from there but never really
proves it did or disproves the infection wasn't coincidental. Anyone
can join so the gamut of expertise ranges mostly within the scope of a
typical user, not an expert. McAfee will perform some activities at a
site and divulge a test e-mail to the site to check if spam then gets
received at that unique e-mail alias and to wander through a sampling of
links to see if there are other bad-rated sites linked to from the
target site being rated. Problem is that I've seen discussions at a
site about malware or URLs to bad sites (for use by those that want to
test how the malware functions or as a list of hosts to add to a block
or hosts file) that then end up having McAfee rate that site as bad.
Their web crawler is just an algorithm to test links without any
intelligence regarding the context of those links.
Unless you visit sites that have not moved for awhile and that either
McAfee or many users have rated as bad, you won't find many bad sites
(when compared to the total number of sites). Similarly, there aren't
that many good-rated sites in their list. The list grows but then so
does the number of sites. What you'll find is that the vast majority of
sites have no rating or for those that do that you won't agree with the
bad or good rating.
I've never been a fan of voting schemes. It doesn't work for spam
unless your polling interval is so long that it allows enough other
users to first identify the spam they got so it is already known when it
hits your mailbox, but no matter how long your polling interval there
will still be times when you are the initial victim crowd hit with the
spam so you still get it and then vote on it to help *others* not get
that spam. Voting on sites is also too late as it depends on how long
the site has been around before McAfee got around to finally rating it
or when some users decided it was a bad site of which only a few percent
are SiteAdvisor voters and only a few of those actually do any voting
(most SiteAdvisor users just use the ratings and never vote).
I gave up on SiteAdvisor because its rating was slow, too late,
inaccurate, and sometimes too biased by inexpert voters, plus it doesn't
rate but a small percentage of all the sites that exist (so you end up
seeing their neutral icon most of the time). Also, they rate sites (or
domains), not personal web pages or private forums (like Yahoo Groups or
Google Groups). There are TONS of redirect Google Groups groups
(private groups at Google) which are used in spams so when the link in
the spam is clicked on then it goes to the private Google Groups group
to then go to whatever is the current site for the malware. That is
where I searched for AntiVirus 2009 to find some links to that rogueware
when I wanted to test the effectiveness of some anti-malware products
inside a virtual machine. SiteAdvisor won't rate subdomains or personal
web pages or forums under a domain. As another example, they will rate
download.com as a safe site because that is the rating for the domain;
however, users have found that the anti-malware scans of that domain
sometimes miss malware and they get infected by a download from there.
Remember that these ratings are just trust ratings on a domain. Just
because they or their voters think a site is trustworthy doesn't mean
that it is (to you).
From what I read of WOT at http://www.mywot.com/, I don't see that it
would do any better at rating sites than SiteAdvisor. Besides too often
not showing a rating (neutral is worthless since it is so highly
prevalent a rating), I got annoyed with the popups getting in my way. I
also tired of the slowdown in web searches: after you do a search, they
have to go check their online database to then assign a rating to each
domain in the search results and that takes time. While their lookups
are in parallel with retrieving the results page, they still come
through the same pipe into your host and all packets are competing for
flow through that pipe. Also, while you could click on a link as soon
as the results page shows up, you'll have to wait for their database
lookups and add-on to update that web page if you want to see the
ratings. If you're a slow user, if you have a high-speed connection, or
their database isn't overly busy at the moment, you probably won't care
or notice the lag. Easier is if you browse under the assumption that no
site is safe unless YOU decide it is after a period of use. These
ratings won't guarantee anything regarding your safety when visiting
those sites. Regardless of how much security or warnings you add,
security boils down to user choices.
"WOT uses the power of all of it's users to help identify bad web
sites.” Um, so where is WOT's own ratings? Maybe they don't have any
and its just yet another voter scheme of rating sites. Uh huh, another
bunch of inexpert users voting on what they don't like or where they
visited that they think they got a pest.
I didn't care for SiteAdvisor. Doesn't look like WOT would be any
better (and perhaps worse if just voters are rating the sites). Unless
you are deliberately visiting risky web sites (which may not be a domain
but a web page at that domain), like porn, crackware, or warez sites,
you probably won't hit many red-tagged sites. If you do visit those
types of sites then you don't need a warning tool like SiteAdvisor or
WOT because you know that you're sticking your fingers inside a blender
and you will ignore all warnings, anyway.
I was a bit surprised at the dearth of information available at WOT's
web site on how their product actually works. Could be they realize it
isn't that great a tool and need to hide that fact. Could be they
realize the failings in its implementation. Could be they feel that
malcontents could thwarts its effectiveness (which means the product is
too fragile). Could be I was expecting to find info on how THEY rate a
site but that info might be missing because it's just a bunch of boobs
voting on their perception of the safety of a web site with no
enforcement of criteria or expertise.
Of course, you have to remember that the sites you visit and those found
in your searches are being monitored by SiteAdvisor or WOT. So you
sacrifice some security regarding your web history to supposedly gain
other security. I wasn't impressed with SiteAdvisor and eventually got
rid of it. WOT looks even less impressive. That WOT doesn't even
employ a profession staff of their own employees or has their own
algorithms to enforce their own criteria to rate sites themselves means
*if* I wanted to use one of them means that I'd go with SiteAdvisor.
That they add sites from other sources, like PhishTank, is irrelevant to
IE7 users since it already incorporates phish lists (read
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/45444/the-new-phish-report-network.html).
When I used SiteAdvisor, I never hit a red-tagged (bad) site that I
didn't already know was risky. Besides, trust is something that must be
earned, not assumed.
Unquote
LEDUAR
Are bound by changing the USER'S BROWSER search tool in order to
impose the YAHOO.
It is not enough, try the INSTALL AN ENTIRE COST TOOLBAR MCAFEE AND
YAHOO, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DETERMINE.
This opens A SERIES WITHOUT LIMITS OF NEW PAGES TO COMPEL THE
ACCEPTANCE OF TOOLBAR MCAFEE / YAHOO AND YET FOR EXCHANGE OF search
tool.
FULLY Advises the installation of this product, what was VERY GOOD.
The SAGA MONEY FOR EQUIPMENT, MY VIEW, MCAFEE TO A SITE FOR ANY
PORNOGRAPHY.
It is unacceptable THE INSTALLATION OF A SOFTWARE TO OPEN WINDOWS
SUCCESSIVE to impose ACCEPTANCE OF NEW TOOLBAR MCAFEE / YAHOO AND
REPLACEMENT FOR THE search tool to make Yahoo the main one, against
the will of the owner of the EQUIPMENT.
RIDICULOUS THE POSITION OF TECHNICAL MCAFEE TO JUST MANDA UNINSTALL
SiteAdvisor
NOT install because it was a pizzle
LEDUAR
LEDUAR
ESTE SITE SE TORNOU ALGO IMPENSÁVEL. ATÉ PARECE DAQUELES SITES
PORNOGRÁFICOS.
ESTÃO OBRIGANDO AO USUÁRIO TROCAR A FERRAMENTA DE PESQUISA DO
NAVEGADOR, A FIM DE IMPOR O YAHOO.
NÃO BASTASSE, TENTA A TODO CUSTO INSTALAR UMA BARRA DE FERRAMENTAS
MCAFEE E YAHOO, MESMO QUE O USUÁRIO DETERMINE QUE NÃO QUER.
ASSIM, ABRE UMA SÉRIE SEM LIMITES DE NOVAS PÁGINAS PARA OBRIGAR À
ACEITAÇÃO DA BARRA DE FERRAMENTAS MCAFEE/YAHOO E AINDA PARA TROCA DA
FERRAMENTA DE PESQUISAS.
DESACONSELHO TOTALMENTE A INSTALAÇÃO DESTE PRODUTO, QUE ANTES ERA
MUITO BOM.
A SAGA POR DINHEIRO EQUIPARA, A MEU VER, A MCAFEE A UM SITE DE
PORNOGRAFIA QUALQUER.
É INADMISSÍVEL A INSTALAÇÃO DE UM SOFTWARE QUE ABRE SUCESSIVAS JANELAS
PARA IMPOR A ACEITAÇÃO DE NOVA BARRA DE FERRAMENTAS MCAFEE/YAHOO E
PARA SUBSTITUIÇÃO DA FERRAMENTA DE PESQUISAS PARA TORNAR O YAHOO A
PRINCIPAL DELAS, CONTRA A VONTADE DO DONO DO EQUIPAMENTO.
RIDÍCULA A POSIÇÃO DOS TÉCNICOS DA MCAFEE QUE APENAS MANDAM
DESINSTALAR O SITEADVISOR
Ed Mullen
Damn, I wish I had some of whatever he is smoking!
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
The nice thing about Standards is there are so many to choose from. -
Michael Santovec
kes
> LEDUAR wrote:
>> THIS SITE into something unthinkable. Like THIS WEB SITES pornography.
>>
>> Are bound by changing the USER'S BROWSER search tool in order to
>> impose the YAHOO.
>>
>> It is not enough, try the INSTALL AN ENTIRE COST TOOLBAR MCAFEE AND
>> YAHOO, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DETERMINE.
>>
>> This opens A SERIES WITHOUT LIMITS OF NEW PAGES TO COMPEL THE
>> ACCEPTANCE OF TOOLBAR MCAFEE / YAHOO AND YET FOR EXCHANGE OF search
>> tool.
>>
>> FULLY Advises the installation of this product, what was VERY GOOD.
>>
>> The SAGA MONEY FOR EQUIPMENT, MY VIEW, MCAFEE TO A SITE FOR ANY
>> PORNOGRAPHY.
>>
>> It is unacceptable THE INSTALLATION OF A SOFTWARE TO OPEN WINDOWS
>> SUCCESSIVE to impose ACCEPTANCE OF NEW TOOLBAR MCAFEE / YAHOO AND
>> REPLACEMENT FOR THE search tool to make Yahoo the main one, against
>> the will of the owner of the EQUIPMENT.
>>
>> RIDICULOUS THE POSITION OF TECHNICAL MCAFEE TO JUST MANDA UNINSTALL
>> SiteAdvisor
>>
>> NOT install because it was a pizzle
>
> Damn, I wish I had some of whatever he is smoking!
>
Whatever it is, I think it is grown in Spain, because his other posts
are impregnated with Spanish
Lon Stowell
Yeah, I think the word "impregnated" also certainly applies here.
Wonder if has figured it out this may be malware and not a legit toolbar.
Heh heh, he said "toolbar," Beavis.