When you surf the Internet without necessarily knowing it, you face many threats. Do you really know the sites you open? Are you sure your connection is secure when you leave your credit card to make a purchase online?

With Firefox, you have many tools and settings to help you protect yourself effectively against fraudulent sites and scammers on the net. Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation.

Firefox allows you to learn more about the sites you visit through an ID button located on the left side of your address bar. Four colors are offered: grey, blue, green or red, and each of those collors tells you the level of Firefox's knowledge of the site owner and its dangerousness.

1. Click on the icon of the visited page in the address bar.

2. In the window that opens, click More Information.

3. Once new window opens you get information about the website owner and location. Statistics which are more or less interesting to your privacy are given:

• Have I visited this website prior to today?
• Is this website storing information (cookies) on my computer?
• Have I saved any passwords for this website?

If you want to see more details about any of above named statistics click on the View button next to each statistic.

4. Once you click on the View button, in the window that appears, you can delete cookies or passwords from this site.

Working with website permissions

Also in the information window on the page you're visiting you set many of permissions: whether you want site to load images, allow or block Pop-up Windows, Allow or Block Cookies, Allow or Block a website to install Extensions or Themes, Share location and few other options. To edit any of these options:

1. Click the website ID icon and then choose More Information button

2. Go under Permissions tab.

3. Uncheck the ''Use default'' permission for permission you want to edit and select whether you want to Allow or Block that permission

4. Once you are done with configurations simply close the window.

Highlight the area of a secure page

When you view a secure page where the identity of the publisher has not been certified, only the site icon in the address bar changes color. It is easy to be duped by an unscrupulous Web site: you think you are on a secure page of a site and you are actually on another page. To avoid this, you can highlight the domain name of the page that you view to ensure it is correct. To do that:

1. In the Firefox address bar, type the about:config (just like you type the url of a website to open a website) and press Enter.

2. If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page. Click "I'll be careful, I promise!"

3. In the Filter field, type the command browser.identity

4. Double click on the option browser.identity.ssl_domain_display

5. If the value is set to 0 change it to 1. If the value is already 1, simply close the window

Be warned when you leaving unsecure page

When moving from secure to unsecure page, only the page icon in the address bar changes color; so easy not to notice it and continue to believe that your connection is secure. You can ask Firefox to display a warning on the screen which will warn you when you are leaving secure pages: Here is what you have to do:

1. Inside Firefox address bar type: about:config and press Enter

2. Now inside Filter filed type security.warn_leaving_secure and then press enter.

3. You should see three preferences, double click on first one and close the Firefox tab/window, you changes will be saved automatically

Next time when you are moving from secure to unsecure pages you will get popup window with the warning ''You are about to leave and encrypted page. Information you send or receive from now on could easily be read by a third party.'' If these constant warnings start to annoy you you can simply turn them off by repeat above three steps again.

Protect against malicious websites

By default, Firefox analyzes web pages you visit to ensure that they do not exhibit the characteristics of a phishing site or a malicious site could install spy software. Both protections are enabled by default.

When you visit a malicious site, Firefox will block access to that website and the button on the identification page turns red.

If you still want to access the site considered malicious, click on Ignore the warning.

If you discover a phishing site not detected by Firefox, you can report that website, after verification, so other Firefox users know about it.

1. Once on the site that you considered malicious, pull down the menu, Report counterfeit site or if this options does not appear in your browser go directly to following page http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/

2. In the new page that opens, type in empty filed the letters that appear in the image. This procedure ensures that you are not a robot that automatically filled out the form.

3. You can then enter comments, explaining for example why you think this site is fraudulent.

4. Finally, click on the Send button the report. The site will then be verified by Google (which manages the Firefox antiphishing solution) and added to the list of malicious sites of all users if it is good to be a phishing site.

We hope that above advices will help you to use Internet and Mozilla Firefox much safer and enjoy all goods that they offer.