What's New: Browsers Turn Green Over Security

Developers of the four major web browsers have agreed to several changes in how the programs indicate "trusted" sites, and how they display popup windows.

Developers from Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and the Linux Konqueror browsers met in Toronto last week to continue discussions on ways to combat phishing and improve security. They have agreed to turn the address bar green when users visit a trusted web site that is often spoofed, such as paypal.com, similar to Firefox's feature of indicating secure web sites by coloring the address bar yellow. Internet Explorer 7 already will turn its address bar red on known phishing sites.

Another major change is that browsers will no longer allow popup windows to be displayed without an address bar or status bar, making it harder for pests and web sites to fool users into thinking an ad is actually an error message from Windows.

However, it could take a significant amount of time before these changes roll out into these products, perhaps a year or two according to some sources.

Wednesday, Nov 23, 2005 10:20 am CST

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