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I also noticed a small moving bar at the bottom of the screen. Closer inspection revealed that IE7 has something called a ‘Phishing Filter’. Phishing is the practice of sending unwitting users to a fake web page, which looks legitimate and then asks for confidential and sensitive details such as bank account numbers, in order to steal or to commit identify theft. Both are a growing problem and one that Microsoft seems keen to combat. It works by IE7 sending the URL of the web page you are visiting to Microsoft, which then compares it to a database of safe sites. If the site is not in there, then the site is analysed and the browser will then warn you if the site looks well, ‘Phishy’.

Firstly, you’re probably already screaming. ‘It tells Microsoft details of what web site I’m visiting!” Privacy guardians are up in arms about this despite Microsoft’s claims that it will keep no record of these web sites other than to compare against the database. Of course, you can choose to turn the anti-Phishing tool off, but as Sun’s Scott McNealy once said so eloquently, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it”. I have, so it wouldn’t worry me.

It also strikes me as a bit of a fudge. If IE wasn’t so full of holes in the first place these unscrupulous individuals wouldn’t have been able to create these sites in the first place, and this feature wouldn’t have been needed.

EBay scams are fairly easy to spot when it’s being sent to an account I know isn’t even registered with eBay. But for many people it’s all too easy to get caught out. And this tool wouldn't have protected my Dad as he wasn’t Phished, his details were most likely nicked by a logger that recorded his keystrokes. The way round that one is to put your details in a file and then just copy and paste so that you never make key strokes. The downside of that though, is that you're then recording your details in a file ready to be stolen, but if you store them discreetly, and not in a document labelled ‘Bank Passwords’, then you should be ok.

But there’s no getting away from the fact that even in this day and age you need your head screwed on not to get caught out online. An anti-virus program, an anti Spyware scanner and a hardware or software firewall are all essential and that’s before you’ve done anything. Boy, we need dual-core processors just so we can use our computers for anything other than not getting done over.

If it’s all too scary then you’ll have to do what my Dad’s doing. He’s shut down his online banking account, dug out the old paper paying in book and pen and started to exercise his legs. Wow, that’s progress for you.

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