{"id":471,"date":"2011-03-05T08:07:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T13:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=471"},"modified":"2011-03-05T11:37:17","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T16:37:17","slug":"avasts-new-site-rating-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/avasts-new-site-rating-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Avast’s new site rating feature"},"content":{"rendered":"

MaryLee on Avast’s’ new site rating feature
\n<\/strong>Hi TC & EB, On your suggestion, I was just about to uninstall the free version of Avast, to try the Microsoft program you recommended recently, when Avast made an update to their program, so I downloaded the new version. Now I see that they have a “rate this site,” which I’m using. I’ve never had any trouble with Avast, so I’m staying with it for now and rating sites that I visit (yours, with excellence, of course.) I wonder if you’ve seen this yet and what you think of it, compared to McAfee’s Site Advisor. I already know what you two think of WOT, and I agree and dumped it long ago. … Also, note to TC: I know you enjoy Hugh Laurie on “House,” and think you’ll like this interview with him on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, from 02 Mar 2011: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cZgFgS0NTxw<\/a> . Thanks for all you do for us, MaryLee<\/span><\/p>\n

Our answer
\n<\/strong><\/span>Thanks, MaryLee \u2013 and thanks for the \u201cHouse\u201d \u2013 he does an American accent so well, doesn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

With regard to Avast\u2019s new \u201cfeature\u201d:<\/p>\n

Any time a software product or a software company \u201crecommends\u201d a site, you should question the motivation. Is it subject to someone paying someone for that \u201crecommendation\u201d\u2026especially if the product is free. The idea of adding more and more \u201cfeatures\u201d to an antivirus program, makes it more and more like a \u201csecurity suite\u201d. Security suites use the often tried and often failed \u201call-in-one\u201d approach. All-in-one products try to be everything to everybody \u2013 it\u2019s a great marketing gimmick, but not usually a great idea.<\/p>\n

Asking users to rate sites is a is a terrible idea, no matter how democratic it may sound.<\/div>\n

As we noted in our WOT article<\/a> a while ago, there were millions of negative comments, and very few positive ones. The web is not that unbalanced; there at not 20 times more bad sites than decent sites. It\u2019s pure fantasy to think that a system whereby sites are rated by all users, could ever be accurate or reliable. What one person may like, another person may hate. Imagine a site promoting Buddhism \u2013 being rated by Born-Again Christians. What kind of rating do you think that site would receive in a Christian country? Regardless of one\u2019s beliefs \u2013 a site which espouses conflicting or different beliefs does not make it a bad site. Users are biased toward their own likes, dislikes, social values, religious beliefs and so on. A company that has tried a user-based rating system, Web of Trust (WOT), won\u2019t even respond to our requests for information about how they arrive at site ratings \u2013 or how much weight they give to users\u2019 ratings. We\u2019ve tried to get WOT to respond to us for 3 weeks now about how they arrive at the their site ratings. So far, we\u2019ve heard nothing.<\/p>\n

Who is qualified to tell me what sites I like and don\u2019t like? Not you, not EB, not my family, and certainly not a bunch of anonymous people; the only one qualified to rates sites for me is me. Browsers have features built-in to warn me of potentially harmful sites, fraudulent sites and phishing sites; I don\u2019t need the masses to tell me what to like or what\u2019s good and bad, and neither do you. Allowing users to rate sites will never work and it\u2019s subject to too much abuse and too heavily weighted toward the negative.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And anytime any company rates sites as good or bad, you need to question how they arrive at those ratings and what\u2019s going on behind the scenes. Is money the motivation? In the world of the Web, the number of visitors, the number of people using the software, the number of people in the software \u201ccommunity\u201d, etc. can all affect how a site is rated \u2013 because traffic equals money.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, AVAST site rating system whether based on user ratings, some Avast algorithm, or both, would be motivation for removing AVAST and use an anti-malware program that concentrates all its efforts on protecting my computer and not attempting to judge web sites. I sure don\u2019t need my antivirus program telling me which sites it recommends or doesn\u2019t recommend \u2013 or having it ask me to rate sites. I don\u2019t need to do that \u2013 there is no benefit to me or anyone else.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

This whole \u201csafe site\u201d idea is better in theory than in practice. There\u2019s far too much room for abuse. There are too many variables in any system of site rating, because as far as I can see, rating systems are arbitrary, not accurate, and could end up being abused and use a vehicle for retribution and\/or censorship. Worse they could be use to sway opinion, or to push political or religious agendas.<\/p>\n

The current versions of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Apple\u2019s Safari all have excellent fraudulent site and anti-phishing protection. I think that you\u2019d be better off if you didn\u2019t trust someone else\u2019s opinion of what is a good site or a bad site.. and find an antimalware like Microsoft Security Essentials that just does what it\u2019s supposed to do and doesn\u2019t recommend web sites.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
We highly recommend MSE and a good antispyware like SUPERAntiSpyware and keeping them updated. We also recommend keeping whatever browser you use updated, and that you rely on it to protect you from fraudulent sites and phishing sites. Use common sense and don\u2019t rely on something or someone else to rate Web sites. There is no system of rating Web sites that we know of that is not flawed; every one we\u2019ve seen is too arbitrary and subject to abuse and misuse.<\/div>\n

You can get Microsoft Security Essentials here<\/a>, it’s free. You can get SUPERAntiSpyware Professional with a lifetime license for 35% off (less than $25 for a lifetime license for two computers) here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MaryLee on Avast’s’ new site rating feature Hi TC & EB, On your suggestion, I was just about to uninstall the free version of Avast, to try the Microsoft program you recommended recently, when Avast made an update to their program, so I downloaded the new version. Now I see that they have a “rate this site,” which\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[267,266,269,270,268],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}