Techniques are provided for displaying a uniform resource locator (URL) to
assist a user in determining whether a URL destination is what the user
expects. A link is presented for selection to a user, and a URL
corresponding to the link is accessed. A portion of the URL that
corresponds to a hostname component of the URL may be identified, and the
URL may be displayed. The hostname component of the URL is visually
distinguished from other components of the URL. In addition to or as an
alternative to displaying the URL and visually distinguishing the
hostname component, a warning message relating to the hostname portion of
the URL may be displayed. The techniques may be implemented as a software
plug-in or in any type of software application that is capable of
recognizing URLs.