Browser add-on reputation

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Avast tells me: "Your browsers have several add-ons installed which have a poor reputation" 

I have searched online and in this forum, and the impression I have is that this reputation is a sort of webrep generated general purpose reputation, and does not specifically suggest that the add-ons in question cause my browser to be insecure.  While that might easily be a reason for an add-on to get a bad reputation, I have the impression that if Avast users all hate the look of the user interface, that might equally well be a reason for Avast to tell me that the add-on has a bad reputation. 

Am I correct in my understanding that the reputation of which Avast speaks is not constrained to being a security related reputation?

Thanks for taking the time to read and consider these words.

John Banister

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Hi John and welcome to the forum. 

Add-on's are different from a webrep.  Add-on's can be good or bad depending on what they are.  Some are very helpful in a browser and protect you by adding a layer of security and in some cases privacy.  An example of this is if you look at my Signature, you will see some add-on's for both my machines (you most likely have Windows, so refer to this).

However, sometimes, people put add-on's their machines without realizing it, and they tend to not add to security and may contain ad-ware or tracking.  Perhaps this is what Avast detected and the terminology used is a "poor reputation."  Maybe is is a poor choice of words, but again this is a global company and the words are translated into many different languages.

I think you are familiar with webrep based on your post, so I just wanted to point out the difference that these two are not the same.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

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Hello SafeSurf,
Thanks very much for your kind reply.  The reason I thought it was related to webrep is because of this thread: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=150596.0

Here, the inquiry seemed related to the sort of add-on reputation message I saw, but the reply was about webrep.

As an example, one of my Firefox add-ons which Avast says has a poor reputation with its users is one called "Extended Statusbar" which displays information that the browser already has, so I wonder how the objections to this might be security related, or if the poor reputation is because people think it's clutter and don't care for it.  Personally, I like it and don't care whether others do or not, but I don't necessarily like it so much that I want to leave security holes in my system if the bad reputation is a security related bad reputation.  So, that's why I'm asking:

Are the add-on reputations specifically security related reputations, or are they more general sorts of reputations?

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The link in your last post refers to an add-on in the toolbar.  You have to be careful with these.  May I ask which browser(s) you use and I might be able to suggest some good add-on's for security and privacy, or you can search for them yourself?  I know you said you use FF, do you use any other browsers?

In FF, I would put NoScript in there to prevent scripting malware.  Look at the others in my Signature and search them in FF's Add-on's to get details on them.  Most of us here who use FF use these for security and privacy and they do not interfere with browsing or Avast or MBAM, and these are considered good add-on's.  Of course there are many others, but I tend to not go overboard...just want will do the job efficiently.