using lap top in Spain

[tacitstone]

I am a visitor to Spain for 6 months this Winter and am residing in Benidorm where I take my laptop to the local Biblioteca (the main Benidorm library) and use their wireless Internet.
I use this connection to access my emails and general web-browsing, but, I feel this connection is not secure enough to access my online banking facilities or online purchases using my debit card.
When I have had to access my online banking account or book a flight using my debit card I have used my local paid-for Cyber Cafe and used their own equipment which is hard wired.
Do you think I am being over-cautious in not using my laptop at the public library to access my online banking account?
I would greatly appreciate your comments,
many thanks in anticipation,

[Ethel]

I think you are being very sensible and doing the right thing.

I expect you properly log out of all these sites at the Caf� and clear cookies, cache, history and so on before leaving the pc.

Whilst wireless is fine for non-sensitive browsing, you are right to be wary.

[fo3nix]

No, it should be perfectly fine.

If you're ever typing secure information, make sure that you see HTTPS (note the S) at the top-left of the address bar, and also make sure that you see a padlock icon too.

The padlock icon will be either at the top near the address bar, or in the status bar at the bottom (depending if you use IE or firefox or safari, etc.).

Under HTTPS, your details are secure even across an insecure wireless network in your library. People will know that you've been to your bank's website (though people can always look here, even in a cybercafe, it's trivial if they want to), but your details will remain secret.

If you want to send secure email, then I would suggest you look into setting up GPG with your email client on your laptop. This is easy to do and bulletproof security-wise, but also requires the recipient to use a similar system.

[tacitstone]

Thank you Ethel and fo3nix for your useful advise, Tacitstone