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

I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.place to

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

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?

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2 months ago
As a techie, I would say rather stay away from browser extensions. A lot of them do add great functionality but browser extensions are much more difficult to verify and it’s a lot easier for them to be malicious without you knowing

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