How to check for secured and popular websites

Nowadays, Spamming and Phishing is everywhere on Internet, and it usually increases even more in festivals time, as people start purchasing more on Internet.
So take these simple steps to prevent internet spamming and phishing.....

To check whether the website is secure or not, follow these methods:

1. First of all simply check the url or the web address of the website/web page:
it should be;
https://www.***.com, instead of usual
http://www.***.com

Notice the extra "S" after "http". This extra S is very important, especially if you are planning to purchase something from that website.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or https is a URI scheme used to indicate a secure HTTP connection.

Simply remember that the additional "S" means a secured site !

Along with that "S", you will see a "lock" symbol at the bottom of the browser;
See the screen shot, it is Google Adsense's website, it is safe, as it displays a lock symbol:

Now another website, target.com, although very popular but had an exclamation mark on the lock, within a red circle that says "Warning: Contains unauthenticated content"

So always remember to check these, before you give out your credit card details to any site.

To Check Popularity Of websites...
To easily check the popularity of websites, you first need to have install and use Firefox browser, which is of course a lot better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Once you have installed Firefox, then you should have these two add-ons, installed in it : Google toolbar(with enabled PageRank display) and Alexa Sparky

With Google toolbar, you can see the Google PageRank of any website/web page [Given by Google - on a scale of 0 to 10 - higher the better], and with Alexa sparky you can see the Alexa rank of any website (estimates the traffic or number of visitors to any website - As of now rank 1 belongs to Google and rank 4 is given to Yahoo!, so lower the rank the better it is - mostly popular sites are those which are within 100,000 rank).

Although not always, but these methods have at least a 80% accuracy in estimating the popularity of the websites. If you are taking some information from any website, then by checking their PageRank and Alexa rank, you will be more confident about the content's authenticity.

*UPDATE:
1. Firefox add-on WOT;
Web Of Trust ratings are powered by a global community of millions of trustworthy users who have rated millions of websites based on their experiences. WOT is recommended by CNET, PC World, Kim Komando, Tech Republic, PC Welt and many other respected authorities.

Blog Admin : Divya Sai

ProBlogger - Inspiring Others Realize Their Dreams!

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2 comments

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sonix

March 18, 2010 5:53 AM delete

Hey I can we get an "Https" site i know a little programing but it's not what we can have by adding some codes, can you explaine how can we have it.

Sai - Blogger Widgets

March 18, 2010 11:14 AM delete

You'll have to buy SSL certificate, but I don't think you can install it in blogger blogs, if you have your own hosting on any other servers, then of course you can install the certificate.