Dave McManus looks at online banking, hushmail, and an out-of-this-world screensaver According to a recent report, we Brits lag some way behind our European counterparts when it comes to online banking. Internet monitoring firm, NetValue, have figures that show the UK with only four million online bank account holders compared with almost six million in Germany. We also spend a lot less time accessing our accounts every month - an average of just 35 minutes, which puts us nine league places behind the French who spend over two hours per month indulging themselves in their online banking affairs.

Despite the slow take-up in this country, estimations have it that there will be over 65 million online accounts in Europe alone by 2003, a tripling of present figures. It starts to become very obvious why companies like Egg are falling over themselves to get our custom.

Anybody of a particularly paranoid disposition will be interested in www.hushmail.com. In these days of endless revelations about the Web's apparent poor security, it will probably not come as a great shock to learn that standard e-mails, particularly those sent from a Web-based e-mail account, could be intercepted and read by someone else. In order to keep your sensitive information private and ensure that communications can only be read by the intended recipient, you need to be able to encrypt the message so that it is sent across the Internet as a series of garbled characters.

That's where Hushmail comes in. Any messages you send via this more secure version of Hotmail are scrambled and locked with a unique key that only the recipient has possession of.

Hushmail recommends the use of encrypted e-mail to everyone from Government and military organisations (makes good sense) to Web design firms and healthcare groups, presumably because they communicate information that could be of a commercially sensitive nature. So if you're a budding James Bond, get over to www.hushmail.com and sign up for the free service. Here's an unmissable one for all you Star Trek fans out there. Head over to www.mewho.com/system47 to download one of the best screensavers that has ever graced my computer. System47 uses Flash to emulate the LCARS computer interface of Star Trek (you know, the bleeping one with all the little diagrams of star systems and meaningless charts that everyone is forever tapping away at). Be warned - the detail of this screensaver is so good, you will find yourself sitting watching it, and so it's not great if you're looking to increase your productivity! There's also a fine collection of wallpapers that follow the same theme.

I noticed in The Guardian's magazine last Saturday that they had a feature on a particularly impressive Web site where people can gather to create identities and chat. Nothing so remarkable about that, until you hear that the site in question is www.habbohotel.com - the very same site that was recommended by this column last week - a couple of days before The Guardian saw fit to let you know about it. Big Dave scoops The Guardian!