Security and privacy have become two key elements when using the Internet from our computer. And it is that browsing unknown or unsafe websites can end up bringing very negative consequences. That is why, along with our security system, such as antivirus or antimalware, it is also important to have protection against websites specialized in phishing and scams. For this, we can use SafeToOpen, a complement available for the main browsers and which we are going to talk about next.
SafeToOpen is a tool capable of detecting new phishing websites quickly, providing protection against them. This extension compatible with the main web browsers is responsible for protecting us from malicious links in emails, social networks and text messages.
Typically, most cybersecurity tools rely on a dynamic list of previously reported phishing websites to protect us. Therefore, they are not able to detect new websites that no one has previously reported. However, this application is capable of detecting new sites with malicious content that have never been seen before. To do this, it is responsible for inspecting both visual and non-visual elements of these in real time, in such a way that it prevents us from revealing our confidential information such as passwords in case it could be dangerous.
In case it detects a website as suspicious, the application collects:
- The public IP address.
- The name and version of the browser.
- The name and version of the operating system.
- The suspicious URL.
- The number of words that appear on the suspicious website.
Once the corresponding analyzes have been carried out, the URLs that have been found to be suspicious are encrypted in such a way that only the domain name part of the address is displayed.
SafeToOpen, safety when browsing the Internet
When we install this extension in our browser it is as if we had a security expert sitting next to us in search of any suspicious web page, indicating at any time if the page we visit is dangerous or safe, showing us a notification or alert at the moment that Let’s visit a website that you consider to be unsafe.
Perhaps we can think that this extension can collect information about all the sites that we visit. But this is not the case, since it alone does not track all of our browsing. It only does this on those pages that it detects may be suspicious , so that in the most common and directly known websites they are ignored without collecting any data at any time, preserving our privacy at all times.
If we right-click on its icon in the toolbar, a small menu appears with the option You can read and change site data. Here we can choose between three options:
- On all sites : This is the automatic way it is configured once installed. If we have it selected, the tool will automatically search for websites that may be suspicious each time we visit a new page.
- On the web where we are: through this option, the application will only be in charge of carrying out the search on the page where we are at that moment
- When clicking on the extension : if we check this option, the application will only analyze those websites in which we are when we click on the extension icon, so it is ideal for those who do not like the idea that it can analyze all the webs and that we only use when we actually visit a page that we believe may be dubious.
If we click with the left button on the extension, a small menu appears, without too many options, since the application is quite simple and automatic, so it hardly has any type of configuration. In this menu we can register our organization if we belong to one. We also have two buttons activated such as “Screen presentation” and “Automatic sending of the screenshot”.
We also find the “Report on this site” section that allows us to send a report to SafeToOpen if a site we are visiting can be considered phishing or malicious. The “Report from another site” button opens a website from where we can report the URL of different phishing sites in order to protect other users. In addition, it has a contact button and a help center button, although when accessing the latter, an error message appears.
Free download
SafeToOpen is an extension compatible with the main most used web browsers, being free for personal and domestic use. If we are part of a company or organization, it will be necessary to pay for your license. This plugin can be downloaded for the following browsers.
Once installed, it will have an icon that will be located in the upper right part of the navigation bar from where we can access it to activate it, deactivate it, restart it or report malicious pages. It has hardly any configuration options, so we just have to leave it activated and leave it current. Every time we enter a suspicious site, it will notify us by means of a pop-up message.
Main alternatives
If we are concerned about safety when browsing the Internet, we can choose some of these alternatives to SafeToOpen:
Deprive yourself
This extension allows us to browse the Internet with peace of mind, helping us to protect our data online. With a simple glance we can know the degree of security of the website we visit. It also prevents trackers from analyzing our data and offers protection so that we can limit the data you use about us. We can download this free plugin for Chrome.
BroeserWall
This add-on for our browser allows us to protect ourselves from different types of threats, scams and fraudulent pages, whether they contain malware, encrypted information or phishing. The application is also responsible for blocking any page that induces us to fill in forms that may be suspicious or subscriptions to Premium SMS services. This extension is free to download for Chrome.
PhishDetector
Phishing is especially worrisome when we use our online banking. This extension is responsible for detecting any attack when we are using our bank’s website. To do this, it uses a rules-based system that analyzes the content of the web to identify attacks, having the ability to detect scams with accurate results. It is recommended only to use this add-on when we are going to operate with online banks. It can be downloaded for Chrome for free.
