Firefox is making life easier for shoppers scanning reviews for products, with an update to the browser letting you filter out fake ratings.
Firefox will come with Fakespot features, a free online service that helps filter out fake reviews, unreliable sellers, and counterfeit products. Mozilla, which creates Firefox, purchased the company in May and has since integrated the faux seller detector into its browser as a web extension called “Review Checker.”
Mozilla is currently running beta tests at random in the U.S. and has not decided on a rollout date yet.
“The Review Checker is a new feature in Firefox that we are testing with a limited audience in the United States,” said Jeremiah Marble, director of product management at Firefox. It is powered by Fakespot’s technology platform. Fakespot helps consumers assess the reliability of reviews so they can make better informed purchase decisions.”
The feature will initially work on Amazon, BestBuy, and Walmart, some of the top internet shopping destinations. “Review Checker” helps navigate users through a sea of worthless fake reviews and artificially inflated ratings.
Fake reviews are a nuisance to online shoppers. But people increasingly rely on accurate reviews because they can’t physically inspect the products themselves before purchase. Altering an online vendor’s reputation may result in more sales for that seller, but it also burdens shoppers who realize the product isn’t what it claims to be after delivery.
Fakespot reports its users return items much less often than those who don’t use a filter.
Some sellers try to take advantage of the rating system by farming positive reviews by paying for them or generating them using AI bots. Fakespot creator Saoud Khalifah designed the program to analyze customer ratings with artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect patterns and similarities, signaling a review blurb isn’t authentic.
Fakespot evaluates the authenticity of product reviews and determines if they are from actual customers or just posing as one. “Review Checker” grades each ranging from A to F, warning users of potentially false reviews. As with most grading systems, anything a C or lower is cause for concern.
“Review Checker” will appear as a price tag icon next to the URL bar. Click this icon, then select “Yes, try it” to enable the feature to analyze and give reviews on the product page a reliability grade. Unreliable reviews are removed, and Fakespot generates a more accurate product rating.