New web browsers are excellent

I spent some time recently looking at the latest web browsers and the improvements in security are excellent. Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox have anti phishing features built in, but IE8 and Firefox 3, and Opera 9.5 take security to a new level.

When you go to a website like PayPal or eBay a section of the address box turns green and shows the company name. Clicking it displays brief details about the company and more information is available by clicking a button. This won't be available on a phishing website, that's if the browser lets you go there, and probably it won't. It'll warn you before even displaying the home page.

The security is excellent and you should definitely get one of these web browsers. You do need to be careful though. The problem is that only known phishing websites can be blocked by a web browser and if you visit an unknown phishing site it might seem OK. When a phishing website is created someone has to go there, discover it is a fake, and then report it. It then gets added to the database of known phishing websites accessed by the browsers.

There's a short period of time in between the site going live and it being reported and you might visit the site during that period. So even if your browser doesn't block a site or report anything wrong, always be suspicious. Never ever click links in emails.