Firefox 101 - #10 - Online Safety and Security in Firefox

Firefox offers a good balance of security and convenience. When visiting a web site, for example, your banking site, you can view the security certificate and other information associated with that site. For sites that don't contain quite such personal and personally identifying information, you can opt to have Firefox remember passwords for you. This is convenient but not recommended for things like online banking, sensitive email accounts and so on.

Welcome back to the Firefox 101 Series. When you're visiting websites being sure that the site your own safe is important especially if you're doing something like online banking or purchasing items from the site like Amazon. In the location bar you'll see an image next to the URL. This is called a Favicon. A Favicon is a small image usually with the company’s logo on it, click on it. This tells me that I'm connected to WellsFargo.com and it says verifies the site and if it’s encrypted meaning it’s difficult for unauthorized people to view the information on the page. This shows the site’s validity and you'll also see if you visited the site previously on the stay if it’s storing cookies and if you save your password on the site. You can also choose to allow or block images on the site from loading as well as pop up windows, allow them to store cookies on your computer and select to allow or block themes. Media will allow you to see every image on the website and you can choose to block certain images and you can view general information like the URL. Firefox also gives you the option of saving your passwords to your computer so you don’t need to enter them in later. The first time you enter password into a site this menu will appear asking if you’d like Firefox to remember your password. It’s completely up to you but not recommended if you use a shared computer. Remember there are ten parts to this series so don’t forget to check out the other episodes in the Firefox 101 Series.