Web Safety

This page contains general information about Web Safety, as well as an example of the information that websites can retrieve from users. To the left you will find more information about Web Applications and Web Safety. To the right, you will find an example of a web app that retrieves the user's location.

(you must allow the page to access your location in order to view it.)

Web Applications


Web applications can access a variety of information about a user when they visit a website. For example, here are various functions in JavaScript that can retrieve a user's information:

"onLine" - Determines whether the user's browser has a network connection.

"platform" - Determines the operating system that your browser is running on.

"userAgent" - Determines the name, version, and platform of the browser used to access the site.

"colorDepth" - Determines the color depth of the screen (16 bit, 24 bit, etc.).

"height" - Determines the height of your display screen in pixels.

"width" - Determines the height of your display screen in pixels.

Browsing the web safely


Below are some links with safety tips for browsing the internet.

1. 10 basic internet safety rules from Kaspersky.

2. Various safety habits for secure web browsing, by WebRoot Security.

3. Online privacy tips; including tips on protecting your credit card information, by Time magazine.