Is it possible to lock a browser

Read on to see what you can activate in your browsers to lock them down and make them more secure. Many web browsers access your geographic location via your IP address to ensure your web searches give you local results. They also often have direct access to your built-in camera and microphone so you can easily make video calls on certain sites.

This is all very convenient, but also a huge security risk. Hackers and malware can learn your location if your browser knows it at all times, as well as access your camera or mic and record you. Tap or click here to see a hacker accessing a security camera. Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari can all help mitigate this risk through their settings.

They each have the ability to turn off access to your location, camera and microphone, and instead ask permission every time before trying to access them. Do the same under Camera and Microphone in your Privacy settings. On a Mac, you may need to go into your computer settings to adjust access, rather than just Safari. But for the other browsers, you should have the ability to require access. Like location services and quick access to your camera, it can be convenient for your browser to download something the second you click on it.

Opening downloads can create similar security problems. Keep yourself safer from malware by disabling automatic downloads on your web browser. Click on the label to reveal additional options.

To lock Chrome for the current profile, just click on the Lock icon within the pop up. From now on, every time Chrome is launched, Chrome will ask for the Google account password linked to the particular user profile every time it is launched, until the profile is unlocked.

However, users do have an option to browse as Guest, but that will just open a new user profile with all the default preferences. One aspect of this profile management system is that users need to manually lock their profile.

If you want to lock Chrome automatically at the end of each browsing session, an extension called ChromePW is more convenient.

ChromePW requires you to enter a password in the beginning of every browsing session. Using ChromePW will prevent unauthorized use of Google Chrome, as unless the correct password is entered on the start of every new session, the browser remains unusable.

If the user tries to close the password prompt or open any other tab or window, Chrome will shut down automatically. With ChromePW, you can also lock an active browsing session for temporary purposes. Just right click on the current webpage inside Chrome and select ChromePW. Chrome PW immediately locks down the browser and asks for the password. Ideally, saved passwords on Firefox are accessible from Firefox Options under Security tab. You can click on the Saved Passwords button to open the list of sites with their passwords saved in Firefox.

Clicking on Show Passwords reveals the previously hidden password field. Mozilla Firefox already has a built-in Master Password feature. This password acts as the key to unlocking all passwords saved in Firefox and prevents unauthorized access to your saved passwords.

When the Master Password is set up, Firefox will first ask for a password every time the Show Passwords button is clicked. The Master Password feature may be accessed from the Firefox Options menu. Usually, Master Password can only prevent users from viewing saved passwords on Firefox. Firefox will then ask the user for the master password every time a new session is opened. The browser window opens only after authentication is successful.

Web browsers store sensitive information in the form of account passwords, browsing history and other details. The features mentioned above will help you to keep it secured from potential intruders. Are you guys familiar with any other browser extensions and features that offer unique and preferably better security? You can also rename this profile and choose a profile image.

You can also create additional user profiles, each of which can support multiple accounts. Oddly, the first profile I created did not pull in the photo associated with my account, but the second profile I created did. For the first, I could choose only from a list of icons. Thus, the blurry ninja picture. From this panel, you can lock Chrome by clicking on the lock icon, which hides your open windows associated with your active Google account and opens a window that asks for your password before it will reload your windows and tabs.

While the lock feature is convenient, I did run into a few issues with this experimental feature. For starters, when I logged into two accounts on a single user profile, it wouldn't let me log out of my primary Google account so I could access Google Drive from my secondary account.

Because of the trouble I had juggling two accounts under a single user profile, I created two user profiles -- one for each of my Google accounts.