How do I make sure that a website is safe for online transactions?

ask your bank about a virtual credit card ; is worth it if you do alot on online buying - like evryone said use htts only ; check site for scams or complaints and install mywot.com (is free browser add on for firefox . google n IE ) tis is what mywot does ( screen shot of google search ) green safe . red - known bad or reported bad site http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&q=windows+security+removal&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en scroll the page

The https is definitely what you want to look for. It ensures they are using the SSL protocol. The “https” also signifies that the business has been granted a digital certificate that indicates that the business is a trusted party that has been checked by the appropriate authorities and is safe to do business with. If in visiting a site you receive a message stating that the digital certificate of the owner has expired, proceed with caution. You also want to make sure that they have the https for anything secure such as login forms.

if there is s in the adress https that means safe

"https" ensures ONLY encryption; it does not imply trust, or verification of ownership, or anything else. That aspect is associated with the padlock on the browser itself (not a lock image on the sites page...that means nothing). Click the lock and examine the pedigree of the Certificate for any funny business, but seriously; this whole Certificate business is becoming top heavy and less-than-ideal for instilling 'trust'. How a site "looks" is completely irrelevant. Crooks spend hours crafting the outward appearance of a site to polish & glamorize websites to lure unsuspecting victims. Your strategy should be to utilize more than one 'check' utility; then you get broader coverage from multiple sources. Have a go with these: Zscaler Safe Shopping is continually up-to-date, via the Zscaler cloud security service, on compromised and fake online stores. It warns users when they visit one of the suspect domains. Firefox add-on; http://research.zscaler.com/2011/02/zscaler-safe-shopping-stay-protected.html Web of Trust should be on every browser. It gives an icon next to a Google search page, with green, yellow, or red dots, for each URL. Right clicking any link you encounter gives a pop-up window> "View WoT Scorecard" takes you to the WoT site's index of that sites feedback. Very handy for those with liberal browser security. http://www.mywot.com/ Google 'safe search' diagnostic tool pre-screens the site you seek and gives feedback about it's current (real time) malware stats. To use the tool, "copy" this URL link to your address bar, then append the questionable URL to the end of the equal sign, then hit 'go' button: http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site= Cover your backside: use a dedicated, low limit credit card or debit card for these on-line transactions, because ultimately it gets down to a matter of 'Do you trust them?', and there is no completely infallible method to do this. Also note, that if you're using Windows to do these delicate transactions, and you are not a security EXPERT, it's all moot anyway.