As a non-techie, where/how can I find out if software is safe? - eviltoast

I’m a fan of FOSS and reasonable privacy with data. I also often look for and install software on my computers for random tasks as they come up. Today, when I was looking to install an extension to Firefox called Wikipedia-EN that helps me search Wikipedia by highlighting a word, the Mozilla page for the extension states:

This add-on is not actively monitored for security by Mozilla. Make sure you trust it before installing.

As someone that is not educated in programming or perpetually current on tech news, what can I do to assess the safety of this and other software? Is there a site that transparently evaluates software and publishes its findings?

  • Hjalmar@feddit.nu
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    2 months ago

    Also, check the number of contributors to a project. All of those people do (probably) trust the project and have also (probably) read at least parts of the source code for it