Repository question

I was going to download a couple of packages not in the Repositories that are automatically added during openSUSE 13.1 install.

One was GMIC. YaST showed the following repositories:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/oss
http://download.opensuse.org/reposit.../openSUSE_13.1 *New*
http://download.opensuse.org/reposit...USE_13.1/ports *New*

I also required the current Firefox which I got from:
http://download.opensuse.org/reposit.../openSUSE_13.1 *New*

And,
http://download.opesuse.org/X11:/Uti...openSUSE_13.1/ *New*

1. What are the above *New* repos? What are they called?
Are they safe? During a 1 click install, YaST asks whether to keep repos or not, is one way better than the other?
I listed the community repos in YaST and I did not see these repos, so they are not community.
Does the colon () in the url mean anything? I saw "/Virtualization/" and "/Virtualization:/".

2. It is clear what the distribution repos are and their respective update repo.
Are updates only security updates?
Can updates be modifications?
Are they ever new versions?

3. Are home repos also community repos?
So there are Distrubtion, Community, Home repos. And Factory. Are there other types of repos?
I generally stay away from home repo's because of security and dependencies.

4. In the past, I usually found out a repo was no longer when YaST complained.
Is there a way to be proactive (mailing list, web page, rss feed, etc,)?

5. I have a friend that went to LMDE (Lint Mint Debian) because it is/was a rolling release.
This was suppose to be their answer to staying current in increments, thus saving them time,
but not giving up security. They are also pretty confident in debugging and providing patches.
But LMDE is changing. This article reminded me of LMDE, "Opensuse Rolling Release",
at http://lwn.net/Articles/606993/. It sounds like Factory would be a good thing to run in a
test VM, while using the distro as the host.

Thank you.