Tag: Firefox

Tab Kit Firefox Extension

Since everyone’s favorite Firefox extension, Tab Mix Plus, seems to be down for the count, I went looking for an extension that could replace it. The only thing I’ve found that does is Tab Kit. Since it is still in development, you’ll have to login and acknowledge you understand it is still “experimental”. I’m using it on all my computers now, and haven’t noticed any issues — other than the fact that it makes Firefox usable again for those of us who like to have >100 tabs open at a time.

WOT Plugin for Firefox

When I went to look for a Firefox extension this evening, I noticed that Mozilla had put the WOT Firefox extension in its top “We recommend” slot.

The idea is that people rate web sites they visit based on how trustworthy they are — is the site running malicious Javascripts, for example — and then the extension warns you when you are about to visit a site that has a rating that indicates it might be malicious.

So, in effect, is a blacklist of sorts for websites. Which brings up all of the issues that accompany blacklists for e-mail. I was trying to decide just how useful this was when I ran across this exchange in the extension reviews on the Mozilla site,

WOT-NOT-YET

Not yet rated by computermancan on March 21, 2008

Great idea BUT VERY DANGEROUS WHEN ONE PERSON CAN CHANGE RATING SO MUCH AND POSSIBLY FOR ulterior motives.
I thought this was the best thing since sliced bread until one day when I went to my own site http://www.church-software-store.com to have it come up black and with all sorts of yellow circles.
Then I knew something was wrong. The concept is great but regardless of what they say about weight it doesn’t stand up. I found that some Google sites also popped up warnings. I went to the forum to complain and found people saying that they down-rated my site for reasons such as DESIGN, the fact I had affiliate links and banners, and other such totally common links on the web. The criteria should be more like SiteAdvisor, sites that are actually linked to harmful sites or where background popups are found or spontaneous downloads occur or where spam mail is received after visiting the site. I hope they use better criteria and come back with a more trustworthy product not so influenced by individual whims.

Developer Reply: Re: WOT-NOT-YET

Reply by Against Intuition on March 21, 2008

Charles, the reason other users don’t find your websites trustworthy is probably because you attacked and insulted them on our forum, which usually isn’t a good way to gain trust or make friends. We’ve already explained this to you in the email where we told you this kind of behavior isn’t acceptable in our community.

What comes to your concerns about “individual whims” and “ulterior motives”, WOT is an open community where no single user has the power to determine ratings. If you don’t agree with a website’s rating, you can always rate it yourself. I can assure you we have no intention of censoring anyone’s opinion even if you disagree with them.

Maybe I have a lower tolerance for this sort of stuff, but rather than reassuring, I found the developer’s response setting off alarm bells. Even if the initial poster has been an absolute asshole in the forums for WOT, its not exactly confidence-inspiring for the developer to admit that those actions alone may lead to a poor rating for his site. Lots of people who run websites are complete jerks, but that doesn’t mean their sites are untrustworthy (I think Steve Jobs is an ass . . . does that mean its okay to mark Apple.Com as untrustworthy?)
I’d be interested in hearing from anyone whose using this extension and how useful they find it.