Surfing the Web Anonymously – Questions to Ask
By Online Security Authority on May 9, 2009 in Privacy
When you surf the web it is possible to learn information about you even when you don’t want to advertise who you are. This is true even if your system contains no virus or malware software. Specifically information that is easily available online includes your IP address, your country (and often more location information based on IP address), what computer system you are on, what browser you use, your browser history, and other information. It gets worse. People can get your computer’s name and even find out your name if your machine supports programs like finger or identd. Also, cookies can track your habits as you move from machine to machine.
photo credit: Unhindered by Talent
How do people get this basic information about you?
When you visit another web site, information about you can be retrieved. Basically, information is intercepted and used by others to track your Internet activities.
How do you stop this from happening?
First of all, it is possible to serf the web anonymously and thereby stop leaving a trail for others to find. Note that this is not fool-proof, but it makes it much harder for people to know who you are. There are products called anonymous proxy servers that help protect you. The anonymous proxy server replaces your Internet address for its own. This has the effect of hiding your IP address and making it much harder for people to track you. Managed PC Care…
How do I get an anonymous proxy server?
There are many vendors who sell anonymous proxy servers. There are also free proxy servers available to you. Two such products are ShadowSurf and Guardster. Guardster (http://www.guardster.com/) offers various services for anonymous and secure access to the web, some paid as well as a free service. ShadowSurf (http://www.shadowsurf.com/) ShadowSurf provides anonymous surfing at their site for free. Go to it and you will find a box to enter a URL that you want no one to track. There are many others, but here are two that are frequently used.
Another interesting product, given the recent news about the Google search engine filtering its findings for the Chinese government, is Anonymizer (http://www.anonymizer.com). This company, among others, recently (Feb 1st, 2006) pressed that it “is developing a new anti-censorship solution that will enable Chinese citizens to safely access the entire Internet filter-free” (Press Release).
Does an anonymous proxy server make you 100% safe?
No. Still, you are much better off if you use such technology.
What other things should I be concerned about when trying to keep my private information private?
Three other items come to mind when trying to keep your information private. First, you can use an encrypted connection to hide your surfing. This article does not go into detail on this, but search the web and you will find a lot of information on this. Secondly, delete cookies after each session. Third, you can configure your browser to remove JavaScript, Java, and active content. This actually leads to limitations, so you need to think about the cost/benefit of this course of action.
Anything else?
Wishing you happy and safe surfing!
Other Posts From Around The Web:
| Surf the Web anonymously – The Internet can be a scary place, with all kinds of bad guys, and even good guys, trying to spy on what information you’re sending through the tubes. Even if you have nothing to hide, maybe the thought of folks snooping on you makes …
Video: How to Browse Websites Anonymously – In this video, Tom Merrit from CNET discusses some free tools to help you surf the web anonymously without letting the destination website know who you are. This may even help you watch web videos that are restricted in your country … A BPN Proxy – Unblock MySpace, Bypass Filters, Anonymous Browsing – Use BPN online web proxies to bypass firewall filters at school, college(school proxy), work or wherever you need and enjoy all of the benifits of anonymous browsing. BPN Anonymous Web Proxies allow you to surf under our server IP … |
Written by: OSAblogger / Bill Wardell - Please Read Our Latest OSA eZine Edition
Other Places You Can Find Me…
Digg - LinkedIn - OSA Community - Facebook - StumbleUpon - MyBlogLog
If you're a concerned parent, you may want to subscribe to the: OSA~RSS while your here, please JOIN our: OSA Forum... also Follow Me On Twitter Thanks for visiting!
OSA Related Posts -
Web Development India A mission to be a globally preferred provider of web, software and business support solutions inspired our mentors towards the making of Nomi Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Hard toil mixed with intensive research work focusing on effective solutions for your business is the simple philosophy leading to evolution of NOMI. Internet/Client...... -
Online Security: Protecting Your Reputation Online Security means more than protecting your PC from viruses and keeping your personal data safe. It also means protecting your online reputation. If you have a website, use a social networking page such as MySpace or Facebook, or have a blog, you owe it to yourself to protect the...... - Need Help and Tips About Free Dating Online - Read This Sphere of Online Dating is far going consequences and process of selection wide. This growing like a weed network of instrument opens numberless possibilities for relations, when you have sense be single from a not long time ago divorce, finished a college or moved in a new city. He enables......
- Using A Proxy Server - How To Use A Proxy Server Using a proxy server is very easy to do. To use a proxy server you need to first know the details and account details of the proxy and secondly you need to be able to setup your web browser with those details. Once your web browser is setup, every time......
- Proxy Server Addresses - What's the Best Proxy Servers Addresses to Use? If you are looking for proxy server addresses to use, you might want to stop right now. If you want a proxy to be anonymous then looking for free proxies online is usually nothing more than a waste of time. It would be much better to use that time to......
OSA Related Websites -
Shortcuts to Get Your Website Indexed by Search Engines Fast Shortcuts to Get Your Website Indexed by Search Engines Fast By Demissew Melese As a web publisher you probably well aware of the importance of getting your website indexed by search engine is the best way of getting to your newly launched website some visitors. There are billions of Web...... - Free Internet Telephony Software People all over the world are opting for Internet telephony over traditional phone service providers due to the basic fact that Internet telephony is much cheaper than traditional long distance services. Keeping this rising demand of Internet telephony in mind, many software companies have entered this field in order to......
- Best Free VOIP Setup Using SIP (the most standard open-source protocol), this guide will show you how to get FREE incoming(with your own call-in number!) & outgoing calls through your softphone with multiple voip providers, along with setting up your sip address.As you can saw in my previous post about softphones, I did......
-
http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=Main_PagennA host of highly informative stuff is in the root http://spamtrackers.eu but for now, let's go here to:nn
http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=Main_PagennA host of highly informative stuff is in the root http://spamtrackers.eu but for now, let's go here to:nnMore Info on Eurosoftware (EuroSoftMarket dot con) Last month, I made a posting called Spoofed Emails Make Me Look Like Dodgy Software Saleman .... I'm now beginning to see the bigger picture after I followed through the initial investigation after receiving another email spam today. My interest was piqued because the spam was very different but the final...... - Getting Traffic - Search Engine Optimization 101 Getting Traffic - Search Engine Optimization 101 By Jason Nyback What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? SEO is the marketing methods that are designed to help a web page achieve the highest possible page rank in the search engine's organic search results to get more traffic. While the results might......
3 Comment(s)
By Dartz on May 20, 2008 | Reply
Being on dial-up still, I have a dynamic IP that ranges fairly widely. But I’m still quite anonymous on the internet, according to the info I give out to sign up for a webpage, I live in Nevada, born in august 1988, and have the initials RD.
In other words, like 5 people know my real details.
I find a fake identity to be enough anonymity on the internet.
By Online Security on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
I think its impossible to keep your imformation private. If someone wants it they will find a way to get it
Online Securitys last blog post..Journal Entry: You Have My Permission to… NOT… “Click Here”
By Mike on Jun 29, 2009 | Reply
Today most of the web browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome etc..) are offering private browsing which are good enough for anonymity. – Mike