App Advisor

By now we've all learned that posting too much information on Facebook can be a security risk, and that we should be careful about giving apps too much access to our private information. Even so, it's hard to know which apps are safe. The new, free App Advisor tool aims to help with those decisions. Before you install an app, it offers an overall reputation rating with a link to detailed information about why the app got the rating it did.

Also free, and from the same publisher, secure.me is an app that will check the security of your Facebook account (or your child's), including posts, photos, friends, and even the overall mood of your profile. By using secure.me and App Advisor together, you can keep a tight rein on your private information.

Browser Extensions
When you visit the App Advisor website at http://apps.secure.me using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, it offers to install a browser extension. It doesn't integrate with Internet Explorer, but under IE you can still search for detailed information on specific apps by name, category, permissions requested, or developer. There's also a random scrolling feed of app icons, each with a color-coded safety rating. See one you recognize? Click it for reputation details.

The browser extension adds one tiny button to the toolbar. If the current website is associated with an app, clicking the button will get a reputation summary. If not, it offers a link to App Advisor online.

Really, though, you'll rarely need to click the button. Whenever you navigate to a site associated with an app the browser extension slides down a banner reporting on the app's reputation level: very poor, poor, medium, high, or very high. Occasionally it may report that the site's reputation hasn't yet been determined.

Reputation Details
The reputation banner includes a "View Details" button that links to the site's full App Advisor report. This report details the Facebook permissions requested by the app, lists possibly unwanted behaviors reported by users, and summarizes ratings assigned by other App Advisor users.

Within the permissions pane, App Advisor separates permissions related to your personal data from permissions related to data about your friends. It flags each permission element as public (green), private (yellow), or critical (red). Pointing the mouse at any permission element gets a popup explanation. For example, the "Friends' Birthdays" permission is critical because the information could be used in identity theft.

In some cases you'll find a list of extended permissions for actions the app can perform, things like posting on your behalf, accessing Facebook chat, and accessing your profile even when you're not online. App Advisor warns that these are potentially risky and offers a link to a settings page where you can revoke these extended permissions.

App Advisor can extract information about permissions from the apps themselves, but the behavior information comes from users. Any user of App Advisor can report that the app doesn't work, or that it seems like malware. Other potentially unwanted behaviors include sending email, sending app requests, and posting on friends' timelines. With the click of a button you can enter your own behavior report and optionally add a review.

User ratings come specifically from App Advisor users; they're not related to star ratings in Facebook's own App Center. The page where you note unwanted behaviors is also the page that lets you enter your own app rating.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/_L1X--vNrSE/0,2817,2412573,00.asp

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