Web Site Links: To Click or Not to Click, That is the Question

Have you ever wanted to know whether the link you are about to click is a good link or a bad link? Tired of being unsure what link is a good link to click on Facebook or Twitter?  What about those shortened URLs? are they safe? 

 I've found found a solution for you.

It’s called Web of Trust and I love it. It’s one of those ah-ha tools that just makes my life easier. WOT is a browser plug-in that places a reputation icon next to Web site links to indicate their safety. These icons show up in search results from engines like Google and Bing as well as next to links embedded in Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail emails.  It can be installed on most major browsers – including IE, Firefox and Chrome.  Dangerous sites get a red icon, questionable ones a yellow and safe sites a green icon. It can boil safe browsing instructions down to “Green is your friend and Red is bad!”

The only shortfall of WOT is that it has been not compatible with Facebook, Twitter or shortened links like those from bit.ty or t.co. Facebook is a black-hole of malicious links. I see infected posts from my friends at least three to four times a week. I know they are infected because I’m trained to look for them. But what about those without that training? How can we tell that the enticing video or link is really a trip down a dark alley? Well WOT has the solution.

They’re going social.

WOT recently announced a beta plug-in for Firefox that will bring WOT reputation icons to links on Facebook, Twitter and for shortened URLs by most popular services. They hope to release the updated version soon. I’ve been using the beta since the release and I can’t say enough about it. It makes safe browsing easier. You can download the beta plug-in for Firefox by going here. If you don’t use Firefox the regular download will still help with safe web surfing. Updates for Internet Explorer and Chrome will be out shortly, but we highly recommend you download it for your browser!