JUNE 2022 PCWorld 105In Windows 10 and 11, your PC should
have a firewall turned on by default. But if for
some reason you’ve been fiddling with your
settings, ensure that it is still on before
hopping on to public Wi-Fi. Just head to your
Settings app, then type in Firewall & Network
protection into the search field.
USE HTTPS EVERYWHERE
When visiting websites, make sure they’re
transmitting data over an
encrypted connection.
Today’s websites should
use this kind of secure
connection, but some
older (or outright malicious)
sites won’t.
Your browser should let
you know when you aren’t,
but you can manually
check as well. Look for
https at the start of the
website address.
If you instead use an
unsecured HTTP
connection (note the lack
of an “s” in the acronym),
the traffic exchanged
between you and the site
can be seen by anyone
on your same network.
That includes any
sensitive info like user
names, passwords,
payment info, addresses, and so on. (This
Cloudflare page [fave.co/3MwOPLp] explains
how this works in more detail.)
Obviously, when you’re on a public Wi-Fi
connection, you’re sharing the network with a
lot of people who could see what you’re up
to—and without knowing who among them
might have bad intentions. By conducting
your browsing over a secure connection, you
won’t stick out as easy prey.Firewall set up? You’re good to go.
To see the first part of an address in Chrome, double-click it. Or you can
click the padlock icon for the details. Both are shown here.