To stop receiving messages from someone in a Chat Room, select the person's screen name in the field that lists everyone in the Chat Room and click Ignore. An X appears next to the selected screen name and their text will no longer appear on your screen.

To stop receiving instant messages from someone, click on the Block button when their message appears.

Netscape will never ask you for password or other details online - either by e-mail or instant messenger. If you are asked for these details by a person impersonating an employee, please follow the advice below.

The most important item to keep secure is your password. Simple, easy to remember passwords are the weak link in the security chain.

When choosing a password it is best to avoid such things as your children's names, dates of birth, dogs names etc. Including numbers or punctuation marks is a good idea as it makes the password that much more difficult to guess. Changing your password at irregular intervals is strongly recommended.

Most importantly, however, do not broadcast your password. Even on a free service, password integrity is important. Imagine the damage that could be caused by someone using your account details to send offensive material via email, or accessing and changing the contents of your homepage!

Browsing the Web, sending and receiving email and online shopping are meant to be pleasurable experiences. Maintaining peace of mind by taking a few simple precautions will help to ensure that you get the most out of the Internet with Netscape Online.

If you regularly send sensitive data via email it would be worthwhile investing in some encryption software. There are a number of freely available programs around, an Internet search on 'encryption' should get you started.

The best encryption utility commercially avaliable is PGP (pretty good privacy). There are legal restrictions to be aware of, so before you download anything, make sure you've read the disclaimers.

E-commerce is becoming more prevalent on the Web. Dealing with well recognised, reputable companies should not cause you to lose any sleep, however, be very careful about who you are transmitting your credit card number to.

Some browsers are capable of automatically encrypting the messages they send to the remote site, creating a 'secure connection'. In most cases, with a secure connection it is relatively safe to transmit your credit card number. Most browsers will warn you before sending out any information if the connection is insecure (this will depend on your security settings).

If you are in any doubt about the security of your connection, do not give out your credit card number.

Setting security options in Internet Explorer is somewhat different to Netscape Navigator.

To change your security settings in Internet Explorer, click View on the menu bar, then click Internet Options. Click the Security tab.

Ensure that the Zone is set to Internet and choose your desired level of security.

NOTE : It is highly recommended that you view the Internet Explorer help file on the subject.

Click on Help, then Contents and Index. Type 'security' into the search box and click the List Topics button. You should find 'What is Security on the Internet?' at the top of the list. Select this entry by clicking on it, then click Display. The resulting article is a fine explanation of the security issues involved in browsing the Web. Please take the time to read the other articles listed there also.

Netscape has warning options that alert you to possibly unsafe situations.

To configure these options, open the Security window by clicking the padlock icon at the left side of the status bar, then select Navigator.

Check the warnings you want displayed. It is a good idea to keep all these alerts as reminders. Here's why:

• Entering an encrypted site: Because the pages are decrypted without your intervention, you may want to clean up or secure downloaded files upon completion of your session.

• Leaving an encrypted site: You may want to remove decrypted files left on your local drive. Webpages are encrypted only during transmission.

• Viewing a page with an encrypted/unencrypted mix: If you feel that your system is not protected, you may not want to open this page.

• Sending unencrypted information to a site: This warning reminds you not to submit unencrypted forms or information through email.

After you have checked the warnings you want to display, click the pop-up menu to choose what you want Navigator to do when a web site asks for your certificate.

If you visit multiple web sites that require different types of certificate, choose Ask Every Time. Otherwise, choose Select Automatically.

Warning: Do not change the options or click the buttons for Advanced Security (SSL) configuration unless you have specialised knowledge.

When you start the Netscape Online Launcher you may be prompted for your e-mail User Name and Password.

Exactly what you are prompted for and how you select your response is determined by the level of security you opt for:

• Low - no User Name or Password is required, the Launcher will start straight away.

• Medium - a valid User Name is provided, so the Launcher will start once the Password has been entered. This is the default setting.

• High - both the User Name and Password must be entered.

To change your settings, click on Advanced Settings, in the bottom left-hand corner of the Launcher screen, and then click on the Security tab.

Each of these covers a different area of Internet security, allowing you to customise your security settings to reflect your individual needs.

To access your Personal Security Manager, within Netscape 6 from the Tasks pull-down menu choose Privacy and Security and then Security Manager.

This brings up the Security Manager box which has four tabs available. Information is simply information about the Security Manager. The Applications, Certificates and Advanced tabs contain security controls regarding wider security issues.

This Manager is full of information about all the options. For more details on each, click on the information i icon next to it.

You access the Forms Manager from the Tasks pull-down menu choosing Privacy and Security then Forms Manager. This has 4 options and they are, View Captured form data, View Sites, Interview and Demonstration.

Looking in View Captured form data, you can see all the information you have entered into forms, add new details to be filled automatically or change your details, for example change your address here when you move house.

View Sites will show you a list of forms that you can automatically fill and those that you have chosen not to. From here you can change your selection of which forms to auto-fill and which not to.

Interview is a tool to help you fill in all your details so they can be use to auto-fill forms.

Demonstration previews how this new feature works to so you can try it out.

From the FAQ:
Netscape 6 features a Password Manager that solves a problem everybody faces -- how to keep track of all your login names and passwords for different sites. The Password Manager addresses this problem by remembering login names and passwords for you and automatically filling them in on future visits to the sites.
You have complete control over which login names and passwords you want the Password Manager to remember. You can choose on which sites to use the feature and which sites not to use it.
A Master Password, which you create, prevents others from using your login names and passwords.

To access the Password Manager, choose the Tasks pull-down menu and then Privacy and Security and Password Manager.

There are 6 options hanging off the menu, as shown. However the last 4 options are all related and do not access sub-menus.

The options are View Stored Passwords, Change Personal security password, Log out, Encrypt Sensitive Information, Obscure Sensitive Information and Clear Sensitive Information.

In the View Stored Passwords box there are two tabs, Passwords Saved and Passwords Never Saved. Passwords Saved shows all the sites that will always store passwords and Passwords Never Saved shows the sites where passwords will not be retained. Each time you need to enter a password on a new page, Netscape will ask you if you wish to save the password information.

When you choose Change Personal security password you can create or change the password used to lock away your secure information.

Normally you are asked for your Personal Security Password once during each Netscape 6 session in which you access any of your stored sensitive information. However, you can log out of your Personal Security Password so that it must be entered again before any sensitive information can be stored or retreived. You do this by choosing Log Out from the Password Manager menu.

If you use Password Manager or Form Manager to save passwords and personal data, then this sensitive information is stored on your computer in a file that's difficult, but not impossible, for an intruder to read. For a greater degree of security, you may want to protect the file with encryption. Encryption makes it nearly impossible for an unauthorized person to view your stored sensitive information. You can choose this option from the Password Manager menu.

Obscuring sensitive information doesn't actually encrypt the sensitive info, it just renders it unreadable to a casual observer. It is not as secure as encryption but is also available from the Password Manager menu.

Clearing the sensitive information permanently removes all sensitive information from the local computer.

From the FAQ:
Cookie Manager in Netscape 6 is an easy-to-use, breakthrough feature that gives you more control over your privacy. It allows you to control how cookies are set and modified on a site-by-site and cookie-by-cookie basis. This control is important because you may want to permit the use of cookies on familiar and trusted sites, since cookies allow a site to provide you with custom, personalized content. But you might not want to enable cookies on sites with which you are not familiar or do not trust.
Only Netscape 6 gives you such easy and powerful control over cookies to better protect your privacy.

You can access the Cookie Manager from the the Tasks pull-down menu by choosing Privacy and Security and Cookie Manager. There are 3 options here View Stored Cookies, Allow cookies from this site and Block cookies from this site.

View Stored Cookies shows you the list of all the sites that have given you a cookie, you can delete the ones you don't want from here, remove and block some sites or clear all your cookies.

The Allow cookies and Block cookies options let alter your preferences for the Webpage you are viewing.