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Petra’s Corner

The technical musings of a geek girl!

As we enter the month of December our thoughts turn to Christmas and, I suspect, in many homes to purchasing presents for family and friends. This year many more of us will be buying our presents on-line, we will be reaching for the Internet and seeking out our favourite shops and their websites. Through Social media advertising we will also be introduced to new on-line vendors, so be cautious.

here are petra Tips for safe internet shopping:

• Do an Internet search on the vendors name and see if any issues have been identified.
• When you open the link to the vendor’s website, look for the padlock symbol at the beginning of the address line of the browser.
• Click on the padlock and you should see an information panel displayed, if not, then don’t continue, don’t use the website.
• The information panel should display three tabs (buttons): Certificate, Cookies and Site Permissions.
• Click on the certificate tab, you should see another information panel. Was the certificate issued to the vendor? Is it still valid? If clicking on the certificate tab (button) doesn’t bring up a new information panel, then don’t use that site.

As you surf the Internet looking for that elusive special gift please do be aware that from the beginning of November Microsoft started depreciating its Internet Explorer (IE) Browser.  Microsoft will start this depreciation by blocking access to certain websites if access is attempted by using the IE Browser and the Edge browser software is available on the PC. What will happen when a user tries to accesses one of the blocked website using the IE browser is that Microsoft’s new ‘Edge’ Browser will be automatically brought into play and the website connection will be made from the Edge browser.  Currently Microsoft will force this IE-to-Edge behavior on 1,156 websites including YouTube, Twitter and Yahoo Mail. Longer term we can expect more action from Microsoft to force IE’s demise.

Remember to properly maintain your PC, Tablet and/or Smartphone.

Wishing you all a very happy and safe Christmas

Petra