RateBud - Amazon Review Analysis

This works great. What I don't like: * Unfortunately it can only analyze a handful of the reviews per item, but it seems like a limitation to keep from gobbling up Amazon's bandwidth (as if that's a problem for them haha). * Analysis description is very inflated, using one thousand words (I counted) to convey about 5 or 6 bullet points of information about each item. * Changing the affiliate link button to "Buy on Amazon" is still not being transparent with the user. What I do like: * It's fast * It tells you exactly how many reviews it's analyzed, nice to have some transparency there! * The "Sample Review Excerpts" are super nice to have.

This is the best alternative to FakeSpot I’ve found. It functions very similar to Fakespot. Many products haven’t been rated yet, but that may improve over time as more people start using the extension.

I wish more products had already been through the RateBud process as most items I looked at with the extension enabled have required me to click the RateBud link to get the review analyzed. That said, I like the results as they seem to be based on reasonable traits of the current reviews. What is a little concerning is the page for the review analysis includes a link that reads "Buy Now" with the price at the bottom of the page as a link. The link provided back to the product page is not an actual "Buy Now" link that behaves like "Buy Now" link in Amazon but the same language of "Buy Now" is a little confusing and scary. Now, what I will say about the "Buy Now" link provided by RateBud is not just a link back to the product page, but has appended information on the URL (?tag=buywhoa-20) that makes it an affiliate link. So, if you do happen to click on the "Buy Now" link provided by RateBud you will be generating some revenue for RateBud. I can't find any disclosures of this behavior by RateBud on the extension page or in the policy documents on the RateBud web site. But looking closely, to give RateBud a fair shake, there is this little tidbit at the bottom of the page which reads "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases". Now it's small print and not a differential color that stands out from the background. So, read into this what you may, but the affiliate disclosure should be in the policies and/or clearly shown on the extension page itself. In fact, not including a more prominent notification is an FTC violation. And requirements for the Chrome extension store were updated in June 2025 and summarized as: "The Chrome Web Store now explicitly requires extensions to disclose their affiliate programs clearly on their listing and to the user before installation. As of June 10, 2025, extensions are prohibited from injecting affiliate links in the background without explicit user action and a tangible user benefit, such as a discount." Getting past the failure to prominently disclose affiliate links, I would love to be able to look at the RateBud data to see the top 10 most untrustworthy reviewed products on Amazon just for some fun.