So who can you trust on the Internet nowadays? Perhaps the answer lies with the cyberspace citizen democracy. Alexa, the Web Information Service owned by Amazon, appears to be on the brink of being blacklisted by McAfee’s Site Advisor .
Site Advisor uses the basis of its own scanning to judge whether users should be warned of a website dishing out exploits, spam etc. At the moment is shows a green tick, however it also relies upon independent reviewers to judge website experience. At the moment 75% of reviewers are giving Alexa the thumbs down, for consistent; ad-ware, viruses, and spyware. On the anti-virus tests Alexa’s toolbar comes up with;
- AhnLab-V3:Dropper/Alexabar.494672
- AntiVir:DR/AlexaBar.J
- Avast:Win32:Adware-gen.
- BitDefender:Adware.Alexabar.L
- Ewido:Adware.AlexaBar
- FileAdvisor: threat detected
- Fortinet:Adware/AlexaBar
- F-Prot:W32/AdwareX.CKD
- Ikarus:Win32.SuspectCrc
- Kaspersky:not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.AlexaBar.j
- McAfee:potentially unwanted program Generic PUP
- NOD32v2:Win32/Adware.Alexa
- One-Care (MS): Privacy concerns
- Panda:Adware/Alexa-Toolbar
- Sunbelt:Alexa Toolbar
- Symantec:Trackware.Alexa
- VBA32:Application.Win32.Adware.Alexa
- Webwasher-Gateway:Trojan.AlexaBar.J
So on Site advisor it now shows on the brink of getting the red “X” along with other exploiters,
Example ,
So most users know Alexa’s Spybar is primarily BadWare, (ad-ware / spyware) and a real nuisance to uninstall. So here is the question, will McAfee and others take the step to give it the red “X”?
The possible reason they won’t is because it is one of the big boys on the Internet? – Wonder if the community could tip the scales by also adding their negative views of Alexa’s Spybar as a reviewer try it out
Example .
Wow, just imagine if we could get Amazon and others to come clean and maybe set a good example for others, by changing their spybar. No wonder many webmasters go to StopBadWare (Google’s blacklist forum) to complain about why their website has been flagged, when Alexa just rolls on regardless.
