Ask Vic - Do you know anything about iYogi?

A Question for Vic:

Vic’s Answer:

Hi, Julie. Thanks for your question. As you probably know, iYogi.com is an online PC support service.

To check them out I first ran http://www.yogi.com through Trend Micro’s Site Safety Center http://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/ where you can get free URL ratings from us. Our URL rating service indicated that iYogi.com is safe, which means that Trend Micro’s latest tests of this site contains no malware and shows no signs of fraud.

Then I ran the URL past WOT (Web of Trust http://www.mywot.com), which is a free community supported URL analysis system that rates URLs based on four reputation indicators: trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. According to user feedback collected by WOT, iYogi.com rates as “poor” for all four indicators. The WOT findings are consistent with the negative press that apparently you have heard about iYogi.

Finally, I looked up some reviews by Walmart customers here:
http://reviews.walmart.com/1336/12574833/iyogi-new-pc-setup-support-reviews/reviews.htm. The reviews on this site are all over the map, ranging from “excellent service” to “they will make your computer worse.”

Based on Trend Micro’s findings, I would say that iYogi is safe in the sense that you probably won’t get malware from them and their service is a legitimate business that won’t rip you off. However, the WOT findings seem to indicate that there may be issues with how the company handles your personal information, most of which you may want to keep private. This sort of thing is always a risk with online services of any kind that require your personal data, including credit card numbers, in order to register.

My advice is: take care when using online services to minimize your exposure.

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I work for Trend Micro and all opinions expressed here are my own.