Question 1

Why does my browser say a website is not secure?

Accepted Answer

The warning has two quite different causes, and the distinction matters because one is routine and the other should stop you.

The milder case is a site served over plain HTTP with no encryption at all. Browsers now mark these as not secure by default, and the practical risk is that anything you send is readable and modifiable in transit. For reading a static page this is a low-grade concern; for entering any information at all it is not, since a form on such a page sends your data in the clear.

The serious case is a certificate error on a site that does use HTTPS, and browsers present this as a full-page interstitial rather than an address bar note. The common reasons are an expired certificate, a certificate issued for a different domain than the one you are visiting, or one signed by an authority your device does not trust.

Most of these are operational mistakes rather than attacks. Certificates expire on a schedule and automated renewal occasionally fails, which is the single most frequent cause. A mismatch often means you reached the site by an alternative name it was not configured for.

There is one cause worth checking on your own side before blaming the site: an incorrect system clock. If your device believes the date is wrong, valid certificates appear expired or not yet valid, and every secure site fails simultaneously. That pattern is the giveaway.

Where it genuinely matters is on a network you do not control, because certificate errors are also what an interception attempt looks like. Clicking through on a public network to reach a login page is exactly the scenario the warning exists to prevent.

Question 2

What can a browser extension actually see?

Accepted Answer

Potentially everything you do in your browser — which makes extensions one of the most under-appreciated security risks on a personal computer. What a permissive extension can access: The content of

Question 3

What is the difference between a browser and a search engine?

Accepted Answer

A browser is a program on your device that displays web pages. A search engine is a website you visit to find other websites. They are different categories of thing, and the confusion is

Question 4

How can I tell if an email is a phishing attempt?

Accepted Answer

Modern phishing is well written and often visually indistinguishable from the real thing, so advice based on spotting bad spelling is out of date. The reliable signals are structural rather than

Question 5

What does clearing your browser cache actually do?

Accepted Answer

The cache stores copies of files a site has already sent you, such as images, stylesheets and scripts, so a return visit loads from your disk instead of the network. Clearing it deletes those copies,

Question 6

Are electronic signatures legally valid?

Accepted Answer

In most jurisdictions yes, for the great majority of documents — the law generally does not require a handwritten signature, and the practical question is evidential: can you prove who signed, that

Question 7

What are the risks of scanning a QR code?

Accepted Answer

A QR code is simply an encoded string — most often a URL — and the risk is that you cannot read it before you act on it. That single property is what makes the format attractive to fraudsters. The

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