The Correct Way To Web Surf…

Is this something you do?

You want to go to one of your oft-visited websites, say Amazon, Facebook, or your bank. So, you launch your browser of choice (according to workawesome.com, and yours truly, it’s most likely Google), and in the search field in the middle of the page, you type in “Amazon.” Then the next page loads, and you click on the top link, and all is good, right?

Not really.

That’s the WRONG way to do that, for a couple of reasons. And the question that begs to be asked; what exactly ARE these reasons?

Well, first of all, for a guy like me who’s into not wasting effort, you’re taking two steps where one will do the trick. Think about it – you have a desired destination on the web, you’re doing a search for the site, and then you’re clicking on the link itself. Not too much trouble in the broad scope of things, but the bad guys know this trick and often float to the top of the search engines with sites that range from opportunistic to downright criminal.

Lesson learned – rather than do a Google search for “Wells Fargo Bank” and then click the top hit, type in “wellsfargo.com” in your search bar at the top. That’ll bring you directly to the page you want. Better yet – make a bookmark out of those oft-visited pages, ensuring you’ll never hit a bogus page by accident.

How to handle the entire bookmark thing? Tune in here next month, same Mac time, same Mac channel!