@UserA789: do u try to understand what igor is trying to say? like when he said: The antivirus can decide whether the site is safe from the low-level point of view (checking the html code for exploits etc. - i.e. the real malware).
let me quote from u: Yea, like when the resident scanner let me navigate without warning to a completly hacked,malware boasting stargateworlds a couple of weeks ago, right?
This shows ur lack of understanding that no antivirus can protect from every single threat on the web…anyways, who are u to verify that the website is hacked?
theres NO antivirus that will provide complete protection
quote from WOT website: While our primary source of knowledge is ratings from our users, we also take advantage of hundreds of carefully chosen trusted sources, such as listings of phishing sites from PhishTank . This provides WOT with a fast, automated, and reliable means of protecting our users from new, rapidly spreading online threats.
my say: trusted sources like PhishTank are just sites containing blacklists of bad sites at the POINT IN TIME of being checked by them. (it is not even real time) as such, PhishTank is likely to miss many zero min/hour threats. thus the fact that WOT allows results from ‘trusted sources’ like PhishTank to weight in on results of reputation on websites is flawed to me.
also, webrep is simpler compared to WOT as webrep is meant to be a component to be used WITH web/network shield of Avast, while WOT tries to combine both functions into one. (which it is poorer as web/network shield provides much more protection compared to relying on ‘trusted sources’ like PhishTank. eg, download, exploits…etc all which WOT cannot provide)
Mcafee Site advisor relies largely on blacklist (at least for the free version), and consumes a lot of computer resources…not worth comparison :
If your going to quote me, please inlcude the entirity of the quote, not a peice that can be used to make the same point the quote ends up making to begin with please 8).
Not long ago, my mom was almost robbed of everything she had in her HSA. She was sent a link via email whos header was faked to look as though it was from her brother. When she went to the site, and also when I went there, the webrep tool had been manipunlated to identify it with a “GREAT” rating. Being one who does understand that no antivirus solution is perfect… dont get me wrong in this next statement… it was already coded to walk past anything Avast (and most other solutions) use to detect its malicous malware spreading purpose. Its a very clever scam, one of the best Iv found. However, WOT would have reported it as “BAD” just from the simple check it does over ‘blacklists’ and she would not have ordered from them.
Do I blame Avast?? Not at all. Does she, to a degree as she relies on being able to trust ALL portions of Avast… and why shouldnt she be able to ???
Yes, one should have known better but her age makes her a little more trusting when it comes to PC’s and the internet than she should be. It also made her so the fact Avast WebRep rated it so high; why wouldnt she trust it 8). If I had not been keeping ‘silent’ tabs on her email every now and again, she would have lost the money she ended up needing for knee replacement surgery. Iv never had to file a police report until that day, but as this was my mother you can bet I went to every length convievable to achieve her safety again.
Here is some information of the organization that almost robbed her, its a good read and also shows how easily (without showing how to do it) they make secure systems their toys:
Iv been on the internet for longer than most. My ISP was the first ISP in my astate and the 3rd in the nation to ever exist. I know more than most about what type of code is out there and that some of it will most liekly always walk past security software. However, a tool that is flawed in design and able to easily be manipulated by those with ‘less than honorable’ intention should never… I repeat NEVER… be part of any security solution. If it is then one must question the true intent of the vendor.
I’m not clear what “tool that is flawed” you’re referring to – WebRep? You’ll find probably a couple of hundred posts here, in a great many topics, explicitly explaining that it is NOT a security feature, but rather a measure of a site’s popularity (as has also been pointed out in this topic several times). When it was first introduced, the plans were to add security to it at some point in the future, via definitions or some equivalent periodically updated … I don’t know if that’s still in the works or has been abandoned as a goal, but certainly no one is claiming that in its present form it’s a security tool.
And if you’ve been active on the internet that long, you know there’s no software that will protect anyone from social engineering scams. You mentioned My_Canadian_Pharmacy … both Yahoo and my ISP’s filters automatically bounce all email from them, they’re that notorious.
Ummm, I never said anything to that effect, however, WOT did rated the site as ‘BAD’. One of the reasons my mother decided it was an okay site to order from was… I love it when you guys mis-construe to try and invoke anger though.
@Bob3160; I did not intent to ‘sapm’ your other thread with this. But maybe you need to ask some of these elderly what they take this tool to mean before telling them anything about it. Im goona bet a kick to the giblets they will say something to the effect of how trustable a website is and nothing to the effect of how popular a website is.
