Progre is a free Firefox extension to change URL bar background color according to website security level. This simple but extremely useful Firefox add-on lets you instantly check the security level of a website (with reference to its SSL certificate), by changing the background color of the entire URL bar accordingly. This means that whenever you visit a website with a completely valid SSL certificate, Progre changes the background color of the URL bar to a specific color. Similarly, if you stumble upon a (potentially) unsafe website with an expired or invalid SSL certificate, Progre will change the URL bar’s color differently. You can specify custom background highlighting colors for individual security levels (EV SSL, High Level, Low Level, Broken and Non SSL). Progre even lets you monitor the webpage load progress by embedding a progress bar within the URL bar. Psyched? Let’s jump past the break to see how good this thing is.
How To Use Progre To Change URL Bar Background Color According To Website Security Level?
Akin to any other Firefox extension out there, Progre also needs to be installed before you can get started with it. Installation is the usual same old same old thing, and I’m sure everyone knows how to search an extension and install it, so we won’t talk about that. Once the installation is done, Progre is immediately available and ready to work. Although you can customize it via its settings (more on that later), the extension works just fine out of the box. So how exactly does it work? Here’s how:
Once you’ve installed Progre, simply open up any website (your favorite blog, a news portal, or whatever you want) in Firefox. Let’s just fire up Outlook.com as an example. Here’s a screenshot:
Notice anything different? I’m sure you do. As illustrated by the above screenshot, Progre has changed the background color of the entire URL bar to some specific hue (Light Green in this case), thus indicating that the website (and its SSL credentials) is completely safe. This means that you no longer have to constantly check the SSL certificate information of unknown websites. All you need to do is glance at the background color of the URL bar.
Specify Custom Background Colors For Different Website Security Levels
As mentioned in the beginning of the article, Progre lets you specify custom background colors for different security levels. Doing so is extremely easy. All you have to do is hop over to the extension’s settings, and you should see a window like this:
As illustrated above, Progre lets you specify custom URL bar background colors for different website security levels (EV SSL, High Level, Low Level, Broken and Non SSL) via their RGB values. You can also use the direct color picker tool against each to choose the colors, as well as browse for custom image files.
Apart from that, notice that Progre also includes the option to enable a URL bar embeddable progress bar. When enabled, this progress bar loads inside the URL bar, notifying you of the estimated time remaining till a website is loaded. You can enable/disable both these options individually. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?
Also See: Ultra Secure Sandboxed Firefox Browser To Protect From Online Threats: Browser In The Box
Conclusion
Progre is a nifty free Firefox extension to change URL bar background color according to website security level. It’s easy to use, and perfectly serves the purpose it’s intended for. The ability to find out the security level of a website by just glancing at the background color of the URL bar makes up for a much safer browsing experience. Do give Progre a try, you won’t be disappointed.
