Site Advisor is running a quiz to see if users can correctly identify sites that ship spyware with their products. A few things crossed my mind while taking the quiz:
The age old method of knowing if an establishment is legitimate is to ask someone who knows, or rely on reviews. In my case I use Google queries, and got 7/8 (simply because I guessed on the P2P programs presented in the end, because I got lazy and it’s getting late). That proved pretty accurate. Just the site name and “spyware” turned up good results each time. Granted that’s more technical than most. I know many who limit their downloads to those offered by more trusted sources (recommended by tech mags for example, or included on CD with them). This test doesn’t really reflect those habits accurately, making more people seem vulnerable.
Why do they have an old version of Firefox for the screenshots (I see the update icon)? Don’t they know running the latest version has more security fixes, and will protect them from known and fixed exploits? I’d expect more from them on that one.
Oh yea, after your done taking the test you can see the analysis of the results, but don’t view that if you plan to take the test or you’ll ruin it. But I know your all honest and wouldn’t cheat ;-).