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So, let's talk privacy, and then let's talk about how you haven't got any.
That's right, if you are surfing the Internet, and you aren't doing it
through some third party proxy server, the sites you surf to can potentially
learn everything about you-your habits, your likes and dislikes, your buying
preferences and more.
In this way, advertisers can serve up those annoying pop-up ads, spy ware
can quietly download to your computer in the background and track your every
move, government agencies can watch you, and hackers can slither into your
hard drive and steal your world.
Paranoid yet?
If you aren't, re-read the opening to this article slowly.
While you are reading it, remember an advertiser's spyware could
be phoning in your private information for future use as you read.
What is anonymous surfing? Remember the old punch line, "On the
Internet, nobody knows you're a dog?" Well, if you practice
Anonymous Web Surfing 101, nobody will know whether you're Fido,
the family pet out looking for the latest craze in dog food or
the parakeet looking for warmer climes.
But seriously folks, put simply, anonymous web surfing erases
any trace or trail of where you've been or going on the Internet.
Your private world remains private and no one, not even your
Internet Service Provider (that's the guy you pay $20 to $40 dollars
a month to get on the Net) won't have a clue about who you are.
This is how it used to be, and this is how it should be. Period.
End of story.
Beyond simple paranoia, people have various reasons to surf
anonymously ranging from general terror about losing their
privacy to wanting to keep their personal surfing sites that
they go to on the job away from the prying eyes of their employers.
Beyond the obvious, what are spy websites looking for, and
how do they accomplish it. Websites use a variety of methods
to gather intel from the most basic which is your IP address
to placing cookies on your website.
Your IP address is where you started from, like your home street
address. Cookies are little bits of information placed on your
computer that keeps track of your habits.
One of the easiest cookies is kept by Internet Explorer,
when you visit and log in to a website, IE will ask you
if you want it to remember your username and password.
If you say yes, it will download a small file with that
information to your hard drive. Forever more, or until
you clear your cookies in IE, whenever you visit that
site, it will automatically fill in your log in information.
Neat, huh? Well that's okay. But what about the cookies
that are downloaded that you don't know about. That's
where the grey area of invasion of privacy comes in.
That's also where anonymous web surfing stops it dead
in its tracks.
Sites use a variety of techniques to gather and collate
this information, but the two most basic are examining
your IP address and placing cookies on your PC. Matching
your IP address with your cookies makes it easier for them
to create personal profiles. If you'd like to see what kind
of information sites can gather about you, head to these two
sites, which peer into your browser and report what they find.
Analyze.Privacy.net gives a comprehensive report plus an
introduction to privacy.net which shows you more about
cookies, gives you a look at what others see when they
look at your computer and more.
Browse Spy goes even deeper into your system and gives an
eye-opening report on what's on your system right down to
the software you own.
Now that you know why you should surf anonymously and how
easy it is for others to violate your privacy, how do you
stop it? It's actually easier than you might think.
There are a couple software packages out there for anonymous
surfing. I personally like
Tor and
Vidalia. It runs in the
background through my Firefox settings, and while it slows
down my surfing a little, The Tor/Vidalia combination is a bit
tricky to set up so if you don't need heavy-duty protection,
you might want to select one of the packages listed below.
Either way, I no longer have to wonder who's virtually following
me around taking notes.
Like most anonymizers, it sends my information through a
special series of computers called proxy servers which
screen me from the websites I'm contacting.
My computer contacts a proxy server instead of the website
directly. The website, in turn, doesn't see me, it sees the
proxy server's IP address and proxy servers are like the
aircraft carriers of the net.
They have so much armament to block cookies, popups and
other web parasites that they don't get infected or pass
anything on to their clients.
Other programs that facilitate anonymous surfing include
Guardster,
SnoopBlocker,
Mega Proxy and
Anonymizer. My
second favorite, anonymizer, is one of the four I just
listed. Anonymizer is recognized as the leader of the pack
and is relatively simple to use.
It's where I started before I got involved with servers
and such, and is really good for web surfing protection.
Last, if you are at work and can't load a bunch of stuff
to your workstation, simply surf to
http://www.the-cloak.com/anonymous-surfing-home.html.
It's web based, easy and with nothing to download, a
real godsend. Give them a donation and you can log in
and surf to your heart's content.
It's not the prettiest site to look at, but it is functional
and it hasn't yet failed me for fast cloaking.
It's done by having a special computer -- called a proxy
server -- screening you from the websites you are contacting.
Your computer contacts only the proxy server, which contacts
the website for you.
The website, in turn, sees only your proxy server and not you.
In addition to hiding your IP address, a proxy server will
usually block cookies, pop-ups and other annoying web parasites.
With some systems you have to go to an anonymous service
website and access your favorite website from there. With
others, you download and install software which finds an
anonymous server for you.
There are numerous services and programs that facilitate
anonymous surfing such as Guardster, SnoopBlocker and Mega
Proxy, but Anonymizer is the pioneer and recognized leader
of the pack.
Good Luck
YourDomainUK Team 
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