Social Monitor tracks and warns you of dangerous social app connections

My bet is that you’d be really surprised to see how many apps and sites that you’ve given access to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. While the overwhelming majority of sites don’t have anything nefarious planned, there’s always the bad egg.

Unsubscribe.com, the site that lets you easily unsubscribe from the spam in your Internet life, has released a new product called Social Monitor that will not only scan the ones that you have installed presently, but will also monitor the authorizations you’re asked to give via its plugin for Chrome, Firefox and others.

First off, here’s how it looks:

Mind you, my list of authorized apps is incredibly long, but this will give you a bit of a peek. I could choose to get rid of every app in bulk, but there are a few of these that I’d like to keep. That said, it’s worth noting that not everything that Social Monitor recommends for removal is necessarily a bad app.

For example, as you can see in the shot above, FitFu is listed as a high level of access, questionable reputation and it is recommended that I remove the app. However, I know exactly what FitFu does, and I’m perfectly OK with its permissions so that recommendation is a bit arbitrary.

Regardless, Social Monitor is a really handy tool. Quite simply, I’m terrible at keeping track of what apps I’ve let have access to my social sites and this makes it easier, you just need to use a bit of discernment in order to make the most of the product.

Another handy feature of the service is that, if your friends have an app installed that you’ve removed, it gives you the ability to notify them. That way, if you happen to find out about an app gone rogue, you can keep your network up to date along with you.

Want to get started with Social Monitor? Just head over to Unsubscribe.com, sign up and download the extension for the browser of your choice. From there, a quick scan and you’re ready to go.