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WOT’s one-click protection suits your Web surfing habits

Web surfing habits change over time and now WOT changes with you. Our new version 3.5 adds protection levels to suit your every need – at every time in your life. Single adults can enjoy “Light” protection while surfing anywhere on the web. You get only a simple alert if you surf to a page with a poor reputation. Parents with young children can choose the “Parental Control” mode which blocks access to dangerous sites like pornography or hate sites.

WOT provides four convenient one-click protection options that can be changed instantly depending on the situation:

•  Light protection suits experienced Web users
•  Basic protection guides the user by giving warnings
•  Maximum Safety stops dangerous Web sites from loading
•  Parental Control blocks access to Web sites with a poor child safety rating and no rating at all

New users to WOT will find these options on the Welcome screen.

Warning and Blocking screens get a new look

The WOT warning and blocking screens get an updated look with the release of our new version. The WOT warning screen shows useful information at a glance. You will see the reputation and rating icon of each component, and to access the site’s details and comments, there is a link to the scorecard. If you know the site is safe, you can click once and immediately rate it. And if you want to visit the site, you can choose to ignore the rating and proceed to the site.

To enable the warning screen, you must have the Basic, Maximum Safety or Parental Control protection level. The Light protection level will have only a warning bar at the top of the browser.

The updated blocked screen shows the rating of each component with a link to the scorecard to see more details. To enable the blocking screen, you must have the Maximum Safety or Parental Control protection level.

Right click for scorecard

Firefox users have a new shortcut to the WOT scorecard. Right click on any link and the menu includes the option to see the WOT scorecard. This is especially useful when you are surfing in a site with links but no WOT ratings.

New languages

We have added four new languages, increasing our number to 14 languages supported.

• Czech
• Japanese
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese

The new WOT version can be used with Firefox 1.5 - 3.6a1pre and Internet Explorer 6-8.

Friends of WOT have been sounding the alarm of the impending April Fool's day Conficker C attack. Frank J at TechJaws, Colin at Free PC Security and Corrine at Security Garden all have detailed information on the third variant of the malicious worm. The bottom line is to make sure you have all your Windows-based PCs patched with the latest security updates and your antivirus software updated. Do it now, because as our friends point out when April 1 arrives in China, it will be high noon March 31 in New York.

Join the discussion of on our forum.

Internet Explorer is the world's most popular browser

with an estimated usage of about 67%. Many IE users are still reportedly using version 6 released back in 2002. If that describes you, it's time for you to consider an upgrade.

While in beta testing for the past ten months, Internet Explorer 8 received glowing reviews for it's new features, security enhancements and improved performance. Critics point out that it still lacks Firefox's vast extension lists, but we are pleased to tell all you IE lovers that WOT is available for IE8.

Visit IE's add-on gallery and you will be pleasantly surprised at the selection of add-ons and toolbars available for IE8. WOT is showcased on the toolbars page.

Since this is a vast improvement for the majority of browser users, we support Microsoft by giving their add-ons site a positive rating. If you agree and would like to voice your support, please rate their site on the IE add-ons scorecard.

Microsoft has released IE8 "Release Candidate 1" which is the final version for testing. The completed version is scheduled to be available the week of March 16, 2009, so make plans now to upgrade and remember to add WOT! Current users of Windows Vista and Windows XP will be able to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8.