Staying Safe Online: Firefox, NoScript, and WOT

Staying safe online has never been more complicated -- with attacks getting better and looking more and more like legitimate sites every day, any tool we can use is helpful. All browsers have had to adapt to this new reality by adding better defenses and becoming more secure. But even this is not enough...

No system is perfectly secure, however, and having the means to improve security as threats change is invaluable. As Firefox has become a more popular browser, many tools have been written to extend what the browser can do through the use of 'plugins' -- two of these have been particularly useful for preventing security problems in day to day web surfing and merit attention.

The NoScript plugin "allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice" (e.g. sites you know and trust). By blocking pre-emptively, many different exploits are prevented -- even those not yet known!

The Web of Trust (WOT) add-in for Firefox provides another layer of trust by checking all website links against a global reputation list for web sites. Although Firefox already uses a reputation service to protect users from malicious web pages when they're clicked on, WOT uses simple icons to show the reputation of a site *BEFORE* you click on the link. Put simply, forewarned is forearmed.

Taken together, Firefox, NoScript and WOT are freely available tools which can help you stay safe online.