Very often I see people mistakenly typing into the browser’s search box instead of into the address bar. This is a fairly common mistake but one that you need to be aware of for its security repercussions. For reference, your ‘browser’ is Internet Explorer (possibly also Firefox or Chrome if you have them installed). The address box is the long one across the top middle of the browser window, the search box is the smaller one to the top right.
Any web address that you already know must be typed into the address box and NOT the search box thus:
When you type into the search box (top right of the browser) you are doing a search across the internet for a website, not going there directly. Imagine this scenario….
You want to go to your bank HSBC. You type in “hsbc” to the search box in the top right and a list of results from the search engine appears. How do you know the one you are clicking is your bank and not some website that looks the same waiting for you to type your login and password into it? By entering www.hsbc.com into the address box (top middle bar) you are going DIRECTLY there.
This is the same for www.bbc.co.uk, www.cnn.com, www.wikipedia.com etc so please don’t get caught out and change your habits. Searches are great but the results can be what you didn’t expect.
Safe surfing