So, there is another approach to avoiding getting infected or phished by a look-a-like sites. Avoid going to the site altogether. PCs use DNS to resolve friendly names (URLs) to IP addresses. Type in the wrong URL, you go to the wrong IP. Before your PC goes out to a DNS server to resolve the IP, it can look locally on your PC in a HOSTS file to see if the requested URL is listed there. If it finds it, it will use that file to resolve the IP and skip the DNS lookup.

So, if you put the bad URL in your host file, you can decide where your browser will go. Set it to go to the real address, or set it to go to the PC loopback address 27.0.0.1. Setting it to go to loopback is called cratering... basically the request goes into a crater (nowhere).

This works so well that many lists of know look-a-like sites are maintained (host files) and are available for people to use for free. This effectively blocks double-click ads, etc.

Here is a link to more info: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Not all bad sites will be known. For that reason, disabling the various apps mentioned in the post can help reduce your attack surface. For people that use corporate provided PCs, you don't always have the ability to disable everything. Cratering can help, especially if you know the bad URL as in the case of the original problem statement.

Mac