The Identity Guard Safe Browsing extension includes many features that protect your privacy and secure your browsing experience.You must be an Identity Guard subscriber to activate the extension and turn on its features. See below for how to sign up for the Identity Guard service.
To activate the extension and turn on its features follow these steps: 1) install the extension, 2) click on the shield icon on the top right of your browser, 3) log in using your Identity Guard email address and password.
Features:
- Anti Phishing: protection against phishing attacks. Identity Guard collects information on recently discovered phishing sites and updates your extension in near real time. If a phishing site is detected, you'll see a warning page that prevents the malicious site from loading.
- HTTPS Protection: When browsing the web you may notice https:// at the beginning of the website address, which indicates your connection is encrypted and secured with HTTPS. Conversely, you may notice http:// without the "s" at the beginning of the website address, which indicates your connection is insecure and not encrypted with HTTPS. This feature helps protect your personal information by changing insecure connections to secure HTTPS connections whenever possible. In addition, you will be warned when visiting insecure web pages that attempt to collect your personal information.
- Ad Blocker: a powerful ad blocker that blocks advertisements and malvertisements. Ads clutter websites and slow website load times. Blocking advertisements results in a much faster and cleaner browsing experience. Includes a white listing feature that gives you control over exactly which sites are allowed to show ads.
- Flash Blocker: often times criminals use Flash content to infect victims with malware and viruses. Flash content will automatically be blocked by the extension. You can easily allow Flash to run on specific websites by using the white listing feature. Be sure to only allow Flash on websites you know are safe.
- Tracking Protection: an important step toward protecting your privacy. Websites use so-called "trackers" to build a profile about your online browsing behavior. These trackers follow you between websites and are typically used for the purpose of targeted advertising. These trackers will automatically be deleted by the extension.
- Social Privacy Manager: social media sites today have very exposed privacy settings. Often times your personal information, photos and contacts are visible to people you don't know. Aside from being a breach of privacy, social media is also used by criminals to learn about their unsuspecting victims. To help with this, the extension presents your social media privacy settings in an easy to understand way, and provides a 1-click Protect button to automatically secure your settings.
- Privacy Check: your personal information is often times available on the Internet on so-called People Sites, which offer information to anyone for a small fee. Not only is this a privacy concern but is also used by criminals for fraud and identity theft. This feature allows you to easily search and remove your information from each sites.
- Mining Protection: protection against mining scripts that exploit your computer hardware and increases power consumption. If a mining script is detected, you'll see a warning page that prevents the site from loading.