Is It Safe To Use My Credit Card When I Am Shopping Online?

A follow on to Wombat96s' great answer, I have a couple more precautions to take; even when using a secure server:

1) Get yourself a firewall. Be it Windows (Xp onwards) firewall or a 3rd party. This will prevent any illegal intrusions on your pc.

2) Get Antivirus software. One of the most common ways for a hacker to pick up your personal details is to install a malicous application on your pc (Bots, backdoors, keyloggers). By installing antivirus software and keeping it up to date regulary you can prevent this from happening.

3) On top of your antivirus, there are also specialist Adware/Spyware removal tools you can use. I've found having my antivirus does 90% of the job but does miss out on certain new spyware, my extra application picks this up, keeping my pc completely clean.

4) NEVER respond to ANY Bank/Credit card/Finance related emails asking you to enter your details or to click a link. Even if the email is supposedly from your bank, and has your name on it....its not them. Companies will never email you asking you for details. Most often the link will read as following in the email:
www.yourbank.comm
But...the actual link will be
198.145.45.1
And will have a replica template of your banks homepage on it.
This is called Phishing.

If you think the email is authentic and are concerned then ring your bank and ask them. Don't reply to the email..please!

5) If you are on a wireless network, make sure it's a secure network. If you don't know how to do this, find your router manual and look it up.

Follow these steps along with what wombat96 said and you should be perfectly fine shopping online. In the end, it's common sense.

Links to Antivirus & Spyware/Adware removal software:

AVG Antivirus (Free download)

Zonealarm Firewall

Kaspersky Antivirus

If you don't know how to use your windows firewall, then read up on it here -> Windows Firewall

Adware/Spyware Removal Tools
Ad-aware
Windows Defender (Free)

I hope this helps.

Yes, so long as you take a few sensible precautions. In fact, in some ways shopping online and giving your credit card details to a secure server is safer than shopping offline.

Before inputting your credit card details always check the address bar in your web browser. This should read https:// or http://secure. This denotes that you have made a connection to a secure server. To make doubly certain, look at the bottom right hand corner of your screen, you should be able to see a padlock or key icon displaying as well.

Today, online retailers are very security conscious and are not willing to risk their reputations by taking shortcuts. The industry standard is military-grade 128-bit encryption of all traffic to and from secure servers that host online payment services. The information you send is scrambled many times and as such, in the unlikely event of data being intercepted, it would take a supercomputer three weeks to crack.

It is a great way of getting bills paid  on time , & also no-one watching you , the only thing is remembering lots of passwords !

No, because there is a lot of thieves out there