Safer web surfing for yourself or your family is one of those things that we don’t often think about. But when a simple way of separating the good guys from the bad guys comes along, I think it’s important that you at least know about it. And if you choose to use it, so much the better.
That’s where the Web of Trust (WOT) comes in. WOT is a community rating service, whose members rate websites on trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. When a web surfer with the WOT application installed as a Firefox extension, a Google Chrome add-on, an application for Internet Explorer and as a bookmarklet for Safari and Opera comes to a website, they can clearly see whether it is rated well or poorly.
Once you’ve installed the WOT add-on into your browser, you’ll see a “donut” shaped WOT icon in your browser toolbar (a bookmark that opens a popup in Safari or Opera). When you visit a website the “donut” will be gree, yellow or red depending on the rating given to the site by the WOT community. It casn also be gray with a question mark if there are not enough reviews. If you haven’t rated the site yourself, there will be a gold star superimposed on the “donut.”
Other WOT features allow you to block access to certain websites, for instance blocking sites with a red rating for child safety.
When you search using Google, the WOT donut will appear next to each of the results of your search enabling you to spot dangerous websites before you click on their link.
You can get the WOT add-on by visiting the WOT download page. It will open in a new tab/window. If you install it, after you finish, close the tab and come back and rate us. If you have a website of your own, send us the url and we’ll rate you. Heck, we might even publish the URLs of clients and readers and we can all get rated – and build up some good karma as members of the WOT community.
Have a look around the WOT websites and familiarize yourself with the features of Web of Trust.
Then place your website’s URL in the comments below and ask readers of this post to rate your site(s).
If you are an Orange Cat client, I’ve probably already rated your site. If you still have a gray “donut” with a question mark, you just need a few more folks to rate you.
You can return the favor by rating this site and my sites at OrangeCat.com, OrangeCat.net and MHMSM.com.
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[...] of Trust (WOT) is a community-powered web rating service that I wrote about in Safer Surfing – That’s WOT it’s about at BobStovall.com this [...]
Fab idea – but I can't find a download button on their download page.
Mr. Brad. You must be using Safari or Opera, which have no add-on to download, but uses the bookmarklet. On the download page, just above where it says “Bookmarklets” there should be several browser choices and the Opera/Safari one should be highlighted. Click that link and it will explain how to drag the WOT link to your bookmarks menu bar.
http://www.mywot.com/
There you should directly find it
thanks Bob, Your information is always top shelf! BTW-That Guy Brad is blind
Safe browsing is also possible even by using Avast antivirus software.
Hi Bob, Thanks for recommending WOT to your readers. I just wanted you to know that we released WOT for Safari yesterday. You can read details on our blog, http://www.mywot.com/blog/259-attention-safari-…
Thanks for sharing that info, Deborah. I have a lot of readers who are Safari users.