Websites
Online Armor’s Web Shield will filter potentially dangerous web objects, malicious security tricks used by attackers/fraudsters, and Block malicious/fraudulent websites before your computer can load them. It additionally checks to make sure that when you visit a financial, or other important website that you are taken to the website you expect and not a fraudulent one.
Video
- Show me how to stop popups from websites (Video)
- Show me how to mark a website as not trusted (Video)
- Show me how to trust a website (Video)
- Show me an example of blocking undesirable content (Video)
- Show me how to allow content (Video)
The Web Shield can be configured to filter automatically and replace the filtered items with a placeholder showing that the item was blocked, or pop-up and ask you to allow individual items as they are encountered.
Online Armor’s Web Shield can also automatically and silently filter dangerous content from websites that have content you want to view but that you do not trust.
The configuration in this section of the Online Armor Control Panel is also used for Banking mode.
Online Armor classifies each website as one of the following:
- Protected – Protected websites are websites that may be the subject of scams. Online Armor protects you from being mis-directed to phishing websites that are made to look like your Protected websites, by using the DNS checker.
- Trusted – Trusted websites are known to be safe and are automatically allowed to load any content without restriction.
- Unknown – Unknown websites are not known to be either safe or dangerous. Online Armor will either block or pop-up and ask you before allowing any potentially dangerous content to load from Unknown websites, depending on your settings.
- Not-Trusted – Not-Trusted websites are websites that may contain dangerous content but that you may want to view anyway. Online Armor silently blocks any dangerous content from the website while still allowing you to see all safe content. Not-Trusted websites are restricted more than Unknown websites.
- Blocked – Blocked websites are websites that Online Armor will automatically prevent your computer from connecting to. These are websites that are dangerous enough that they should not be visited at all.
Online Armor uses a list of known websites to automatically recognize and classify known websites that should be Protected, Trusted, Not-Trusted, and Blocked to provide as much automatic protection as possible.
The Web Shield uses DNS Checking to ensure that you are not being redirected to phishing websites made to look like your banking website and capture your login information.
DNS checking is automatically performed on Protected websites and in Banking mode; no additional configuration is needed. Online Armor will alert you if the DNS results do not match those of the trusted third-party DNS server.
 | Web Shield popups are very simple. The pop-up will show you the version information for the program that wants to load the website content, the type of object that the website wants to load (e.g. Java Applet), and the name of the website that wants to load the object. You can check the box to “Remember my decision” to prevent further pop-ups from this website. (Note: Online Armor no longer creates popups for ActiveX objects. They are blocked inline in the webpage, with an option to click a link to unblock the object.) |
Once you have visited an Unknown, Not-Trusted, or Blocked website, Online Armor will add it to the Web Sites list automatically. You can access this list by opening the Online Armor Control Panel and selecting Web Sites from the main menu on the left. The Web Sites list will show you any Unknown websites that have attempted to load potentially dangerous content, as well as any websites that you have added and set to Protected, Trusted, or Not-Trusted.
The Web Sites list is organized using a table with the following columns:
- Status– Shows whether the website is Trusted, Unknown, or Not Trusted.
- Site – Shows the website address.
Each row is color coded to indicate whether the program is set to Trusted (green), Not-Trusted (red), or Unknown (salmon). A legend showing the colors and their corresponding status can be found in the Options tab of the Web Sites list.
Remove the check next to the "Hide Unknown" box to the left of the buttons at the bottom if you do not wish to display Unknown entries in the list.
Underneath the list are the following buttons:
- Don’t Trust – Changes the selected website’s status to Not-Trusted.
- Edit – Allows you to modify the website address and change its status.
- Add – Allows you to add a new website to the list.
- Delete – Removes the website from the Web Sites list.
- Trust – Changes the selected website’s status to Trusted.
Online Armor does not show websites that are on the built-in Trusted list.
You can right-click any websites in the Web Sites list to access the following additional options:
- Right/Left Justify - Changes whether the text under Site appears on the left or right of the column.
- Open – Opens your web browser and takes you to the selected website.
- Learn - Opens an Online Armor browser window that will add all domains and subdomains encountered. This is used to learn banking websites so that you can use Banking Mode with ease.
- Add – Allows you to add a new website to the list.
- Edit – Allows you to modify the website address and change its status.
- Delete – Removes the website from the Web Sites list.
- Export – Allows you to export the Web Sites settings to a settings file, so that you can import them again later if you reinstall Online Armor.
- Import – Allows you to import previously exported settings.
- Unknown – Changes the selected website’s status to Unknown.
- Trusted – Changes the selected website’s status to Trusted.
- Not Trusted – Changes the selected website’s status to Not Trusted.
- Blocked – Changes the selected website’s status to Blocked.
- Protected – Changes the selected website’s status to Protected.
The Options tab contains the following options.
- Legend – Provides a visual reference for the color coding of the Programs list, including what each color indicates.
- Prompt when blocking content on unknown sites – Changes whether Online Armor will pop-up when an Unknown website tries to load potentially dangerous content. Disabling this option configures Online Armor to silently block all potentially dangerous content. ActiveX content is an exception, and is always blocked silently, regardless of whether this setting is enabled or disabled. This option is enabled by default.
- Show in web browser when content is silently blocked – This option is only available if “Prompt when blocking content on unknown sites” is disabled. When this option is enabled, Online Armor will display a notification in place of the blocked content. This notifies you that the content was blocked and allows you to unblock the individual item. ActiveX content is an exception, and is always handled in this way, regardless of whether this setting is enabled or disabled.
- Activate Cookie Cutter – Allows you to enable or disable Cookie Cutter. This feature changes website cookies to tell your browser to delete them when you close your browser, thereby limiting the effectiveness of tracking cookies.
- Ignore OA Website List – Configures Online Armor so that it does not use the internal list of known websites, treating every website as Unknown instead.
- Clear unknown sites on reboot – Configures Online Armor to clear the Web Sites list of all Unknown websites every time you restart your computer. This option is disabled by default.
