A website that is not safe can be an easy target for hackers and scammers. Unsafe websites can be easily spammed and used as a tool to scam people of their money; get their debit card detail, passwords, and any other personal data thieves find valuable. To stop that from happening, you can use one of the several ways to tell if a website is safe.

As you rush off to shop from an e-commerce website or use websites that require your data of any sort, it is ideal to check for the website’s reputation to be sure of its safety before inputting your data.  In that regard, we have written out 5 ways to tell if a website is safe or not.

Let’s go!

1.     HTTPS

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the basic protocol for sending data from your web browser to a website. The HTTPS is the secured version of the HTTP with the “S” standing for “secure”. The HTTPS protocol is used by websites like e-commerce websites and financial platforms to encrypt your data and protect it from data thieves.

The basic way to know if a website is secure is looking at the address bar for a padlock icon. If you find a padlock icon that means the website has an SSL certificate installed. If you can’t find a padlock icon that means the website is not safe to input your data. And an SSL certificate is not installed.

2.     Website safety checker

Using a website safety checker is one of the easy ways to tell if a website is safe or not. You can use a website safety checkers like the Google safe browsing, Opera blacklist, OpenPhish, Avira, Comodo, etc. To use them, you have to copy the URL of a website and paste it into the search bar of the website safety checker. A scan will be carried out and in seconds, the website safety checker will let you know if it is a safe website or not.

3.     Browser safety tools

Recent web browsers are launched with built-in browsing safety tools and old ones are being updated to have safety features. In a browser’s privacy and advanced settings, you will find toggles to restrict distracting pop-ups, stop flash content, disable malicious downloads, and set which website can have access to your microphone and camera.\

4.     Privacy policy and Business Registration number

If you are already on a website, one of the ways to check if the website is safe, is to check out their privacy policy. Legit websites should have a privacy policy page. Do they state that your data will be safe? If you don’t understand the terms on the page, you can try checking them on Google. If it is a business website, you can check for the business registration number on the website to verify the existence of the business.

5.     Contact Information

One of the easy ways to tell if a website is safe is by checking out their contact information on the contact us page. Businesses and organizations always state the various ways you can contact them. They can list a physical address and their social media accounts. Run a background check on all the social media pages and their also check if they are physically in existence on the address they have stated. If you can’t find anything convincing, it can be a sign that their website is not safe to interact with.

Conclusion

There are many websites out the internet that are not safe to input your data. Using the 5 ways we have stated above will help you tell a website that isn’t safe. This can save you from being a prey to scammers and also help you stay alert and help you identify future threats.