After you ensure that your computer has a working antivirus, you can add to your security inside your browser. There are a variety of browser extensions that can serve as a security advisor, while you surf the web. And these freebies generally do not interfere with your antivirus. They complement it!
A “security advisor” extension may help you in a variety of ways:
- Block advertisements
- Warn if you click a phishing link
- Mark search results as safe/dangerous
- Suppress tracking cookies and other unseen surveillance
- Alert you to potential financial fraud as you shop and visit banking sites
Security Advisor Extensions
Bitdefender Safe Web: I’ve blogged about this one before, and am very comfortable with it. On Macs and older systems, it may still function under its old name, Trafficlight, and can be hard to obtain until you install their whole antivirus suite.
Malwarebytes Browser Guard: This extension strives to be a Swiss-Army-Knife, with ad-blocking, link-checking, phishing-warning and more. It does come with a lot of pop-up alerts, but you can turn some of them off, if it feels like too much.
Browsing Protection by F-Secure: Verizon is promoting this tool in 2026. And F-Secure is a longstanding security company that we can trust. But if you go looking for this extension, it’s a little hard to find. I can link to this extension for Chrome, Edge and Firefox, but can’t quite track down a Safari option.
Norton Safe Web: Norton’s browsing protection is offered for all of the major browsers, including Safari.
McAfee WebAdvisor: This extension is rather similar to Norton’s. I am less of a fan of this one, though, because it often changes your default search engine to a Yahoo-variant. Yahoo Search would not be my first choice to keep people safe…
Caveats
I always have to mention: if you try out a security advisor extension, please install only one of these at a time. If you wish to use a different security advisor, remove the first before you install a second. Too many security advisors in your browser could lead to slowness or errors.
Many companies offer these as free, in order to “get their foot in the door”. They may try to sell you additional products or services. At this time, I only recommend using this type of protection for free. I do not pay for any such security, and I will not encourage you to do so. If a particular extension is being too pushy with you about becoming a paid customer, then you may want to uninstall and try something else.
If you subscribe to paid antivirus with Norton or another AV firm, then they may have already added such an extension to your browsers. Check out your browser’s installed extensions if you are unsure. Look for the jigsaw-puzzle-piece icon in the upper-right corner of your browser.
Some software updates (ahem, Adobe) may add a security advisor extension without asking. If you find such an item in your browser extension, it’s harmless to remove it.