Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service
There are many reasons people have for wanting to surf anonymously, ranging from simple paranoia in terms of protecting personal data, to hiding browsing activities from other users of a computer including parents, spouses, or even other organizations. Whatever your reasons for wanting to use anonymous browsing services, or criticizing others for wanting to use them, I will not debate the political, legal, moral, ethical and other reasons, but simply review the available technology. Be aware that most corporate networks will block the use of anonymous surfing activities at the corporate firewall. Corporate networks and internet links are after all the property of your employer and should never be misused in violation of corporate acceptable use policies, so don’t expect any help here in finding ways to circumvent firewall blocking.
The most obvious anonymous browsing application for most people is in internet cafes, on public terminals, using wireless or even wired access points away from home, or in fact, on any PC including your own, where you don't want to leave traces of your private surfing activities. Some other browsing activity cleaners exist that clear the cache, cookies, history and other traces, some are even available as a standard in most browsers, but anonymous browsing goes a step further. What attracts me is not so much the privacy aspect, but rather the security potential, because all of the anonymizing browser proxy based services create a secure encrypted connection between the PC you are using and the first anonymizing proxy server. This allows you to safely transmit information without little risk of local interception, making it ideal for surfing on open Wi-Fi networks, or in hotels while travelling.
Previously, secure surfing on such networks required the use of private VPN networks, generally an option only available to corporate employees, those with the available money to pay for it and the technically savvy. Now, using any of the Tor or JAP based browsers, any surfer can reap the same sort of security benefits for their browsing. Whatever the reasons anyone may have for using anonymizing browsing, commercial services that offer anonymity are doing well, and a number of both free and subscription based browsing applications and services have become available.
Two dominant services exist which provide the foundation for free, secure anonymous browsing. The JAP network was good enough that the German Police insisted in 2004, that a backdoor be put into the product to allow interception of child pornographers. This was done, but subsequently removed as a result of court action by the JAP development team. The alternative is Tor (The Onion Ring), which is a system that not only allows anonymous browsing but also anonymous P2P, email, IM, and IRC chat. Given the US Navy origin of Tor, the suspicion inevitably arises that this system may have a permanent backdoor, however, the source code is now publicly available so that suspicion can perhaps be set aside. More worrying was a raid by German police in September 2006 involving the seizure of some Tor servers in that country. Again, pedophiles were the supposed target, but who really knows.
OperaTor is my clear first choice, a portable version of Opera with an included and well integrated Tor engine that uses the free Tor network. OperaTor is small and relatively fast, using just 6Mb of memory for it’s Tor engine, 2Mb for the Polipo caching proxy, 3Mb for the OperaTor loader and 18Mb for Opera. In my experience, OperaTor is by far the fastest browser, even with multiple proxies on the Tor network so that the browsing trail is frequently changing for greater security. Some people don't like the fact that OperaTor is not released with source code available (at least not that we have yet located) which may influence the choice in whether to use it or not. I believe that unless a user is proficient in programming, or at least reading the development language of any particular application, this becomes rather irrelevant, unless some amount of comfort or security might be perceived in knowing that source is available and others might be checking it even if the user of the application can not read it personally. Even closed source projects that become popular generally receive enough user and peer scrutiny that most problems would be quickly exposed.
JonDo (previously known as JAP) is my second choice and is in some ways a more flexible option, in that it is simply a Java application that performs the role of a local (PC based) proxy server that redirects browser requests via the JonDo (formerly JAP) network. This allows the user to configure their choice of any browser rather than requiring a change to Opera. Unfortunately, being Java based means that the application becomes somewhat bloated, requiring 54Mb of memory just for the Java JonDo application, as well as another few Mb for the JAP engine, and then whatever additional is required for the web browser of choice. JonDo does have quite a nice GUI display which shows the strength of the anonymity based on the number of anonymizing proxy servers, and takes care of managing the random proxy changes for greater anonymity. A commercial service known as JonDonym has been introduced which uses dedicated servers to provide higher speeds, higher levels of availability and more security along with support for chat, ftp and ssh in addition to web browsing. Another offering from the commercial JonDonym group is JonDoFox, a customized version of Firefox with JonDo code embedded along with other anonymizing optimizations. Unfortunately, JonDo not being a network like Tor is prone to some limitations in terms of the numbers of free servers, and some subsequent downtimes may be more likely with the smaller server base.
Vidalia is my third choice, a close match to JonDo in that it is quite a bit lighter in memory use and generally feels faster, but may not have the same level of anonymizing as JonDo. Vidalia is another integrated package using a combination of Privoxy and a Tor engine to connect to the Tor network, but it offers many new features. As with JonDo, Vidalia behaves as a local proxy for use by any browser, but it also provides configurations allowing it to run either as a simple standalone process or as a Windows service (for security and performance reasons, among others). Vidalia allows the user to participate in the anonymizing process by becoming a Tor Relay to help censored users in a similar way to becoming a BitTorrent relay, and a live realtime facility is available showing a map of the earth with lines representing connections to the Tor server participants. Vidalia uses 24 - 32Mb of memory, with an additional 4Mb used for Privoxy and another 16.5Mb for the Tor engine. One initially confusing aspect of Vidalia is that it provides a configuration access through port 9051, but it is not immediately obvious that Privoxy is listening on port 8118. Browsers using the Vidalia bundle must be configured to use the Privoxy port 8118 as the proxy server, not port 9051. Like JonDo, the Vidalia/Privoxy combination constantly changes proxy servers to mask the trail to provide greater anonymity.
Whatever your preference, both JAP and Tor networks offer a level of secrecy that is better than many commercial systems, though they are not watertight. Expect your surfing to slow down, in some case substantially, because you'll be relayed through a chain of servers, all heavily impacted by BitTorrent users seeking to hide from the RIAA. Note: the latest V5 release of JAP now allows Tor users to use JAP as a software access point to the Tor network.
The XeroBank Browser (previously known as TorPark) provides a new customized version of the Firefox browser configured to work with the free Tor anonymizing service, or with a subscription service for higher speeds using dedicated servers, and other features. Firefox users may feel more comfortable with XeroBank, as it is based on Firefox, but also need not make any changes at all if they make use of either the JonDo or Vidalia bundles to access the Tor engine other than to set the proxy server, and of course, manual cleanup of the cache, cookies and browsing history after use. XeroBank claims to have many advanced features, but for the average user most of these may not be apparent, unless the subscription service is used. While the XeroBank browser is free to use on the Tor network, the XeroBank web site promotes the use of their subscription-based account. During installation, the XeroBank Browser offers the choice of using either the commercial XeroBank Client or the free Tor service. Caution! Some antivirus scanners report trojan infected code in the XeroBank download. Use http://jotti.org to verify all downloads, and use XeroBank and all other applications with caution, but be aware that some of the virus scanners used by jotti.org may also be overly zealous in their reporting of infections. Some claimed virus or trojan infections in various applications are no more than firewall detection, or software product key reporting capabilities mis-diagnosed by the scanner as a potential threat.
The downside of XeroBank as contrasted with using JonDo or Vidalia, is that you would need to use XeroBank for anonymous browsing and your regular browser for other surfing. Using JonDo or Vidalia, you can use the browser of your choice, and just reconfigure to use the proxy when you want to anonymous surfing. This won't automatically clean out all other personal data (cache, history, cookies etc.) when the application is shut down, which OperaTor and XeroBank do.
A final item for review recently brought to my attention by Peter, one of our visitors, is UltraSurf, which seems to be primarily targeted at people in China wanting to circumvent official government internet censorship. We will not get into the politics or ethics of either the censorship or circumvention of censorship, however the facility exists and may be useful to some people. UltraSurf is a very simple application, a single tiny 281Kb download containing just one executable, u.exe. When running, this little program uses just 7.5Mb of memory and performs the same role of proxy server as other applications, redirecting all browser requests via the UltraSurf proxy servers. While this is an interesting new development claiming to be very sophisticated, it seems on the surface to be rather simplistic, and does not appear to change proxy servers in the same way that JAP and Tor do. Browsing speeds also seemed to be somewhat slower than with either Tor or JAP browsing. The program appeared to be clean on a http://jotti.org virus scan, other than one possible trojan reported by F-Prot, so as with all software, while it appeared to be safe on my tests, test it out and scan it yourself. By default, UltraSurf changes proxy settings and launches Internet Explorer when it starts, but I was able to shut down Explorer and start FireFox and Opera with the proxy reconfigured to use the same port and successfully browse via UltraSurf.
For all anonymizing services, check that you are running in anonymous mode by first browsing to one of many servers which reports your IP address, for example http://www.whatismyip.com/ and take note of your IP address. Reconfigure your browser to make use of the anonymizing service, and reload / refresh the browser and verify that the reported IP address has changed. Some IP reporting servers will also tell you which country, and even which city you now appear to be connecting from.
Most of the services reviewed are able to run directly from a USB flash drive if the executables are simply copied as is from their installation directories. This works really well, just plug your flash drive into any PC with a USB port, launch both the anonymizing proxy software and a browser, set the browser to redirect via the anonymizer and you will be in business. In the case of both OperaTor and XeroBank, all you need to is launch the browser from your flash drive and you will be ready to start browsing.
While some 'LiveCD' applications such as XeroBank Machine and Incognito Live CD have been created and may provide similar functions, they mostly seem to be currently released in various stages of alpha or beta test versions and have bugs or limitations. For example, the XeroBank Machine provides two options. You can either run the xBMachine.exe from a Windows prompt which starts a QEMU virtual machine and then runs a GenToo Linux kernel, or by booting from a "Live CD". This Live CD boots the same customized GenToo Linux environment from CD without any Windows involvement. In simple terms, both xBMachine options simply provide a different "hardened" OS platform to run the Firefox based XeroBank Browser. Is LiveCD really useful? To some people, yes, not to me. It does mean that like SandBoxie, your guest operating system is protected from malicious web sites via your browsing, and when you stop the QEMU virtual machine or reboot the PC from hard disk rather than CD all traces are removed. I am a Unix / Linux geek so I am totally at home with them, but for the average person, I suspect the LiveCD and QEMU based options will provide a confusing level of complexity that will just interfere with their browsing and desire to be safe. Not much can beat truly safe browsing habits, whatever browser or add-on tools you use. xBMachine is a 380Mb zip file download, which unpacked yields a 391Mb ISO image to create a CD as well as another 10Mb or so of the QEMU environment. The QEMU hosted browser uses 292+Mb of 
memory, requires the ISO image present, and took more than 5 minutes to load and be ready for use on a 1.8Ghz dual core Intel PC with 1Gb or memory. It provides a Linux X-Windows GUI with a profile configuration, a network configuration, xBBrowser, e-mail, Pidgin instant messenger, terminal and an option to configure for the paid subscription network. I don't know about you, but I am not willing to wait 5 or more minutes and have close to 300Mb of disk space tied up in a browser that took another minute or two to load, and then in my case never managed to connect out anyway. For those who feel that having source available makes a better product, go ahead and try to download the XeroBank source. All of the links gave me a 7Mb source zip file which was corrupted and would not open. Would this give you "open source available" feelings of security? I don't think so.
I'm a freeware and open source fan, I can read and write programs, but not when the source file is corrupted, and I am not likely to start poring through tens of thousands of lines of code even if I could unpack the source. Even if it does unpack, how do we know that exact source was used to build the tool, and not another set of customized source with a built in Trojan or spyware? The reality is that we really don't know unless we both inspect the source code and then compile it and compare the distributed executable.
One final comment on anonymizing, your browsing activities will never be 100% secure and guaranteed to be anonymous. It will be very difficult for anyone to trace you while browsing through the Tor network, except as reported in the Tor wiki, "when you access pages that use Java, Javascript, Macromedia Flash and Shockwave, QuickTime, RealAudio, ActiveX controls, and VBScript are all known to be able to access local information about your operating system and local network. These technologies will work over proxies and can tunnel the information back to their source."
Product Details
JonDo
Website: http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html
Download Link: http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/download_en.html
Author: JonDo is a software development within the Project Anonymity in the Internet sponsored by the German Research Foundation and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The Project works closely with the Independent Center for Data Privacy Schleswig-Holstein.
Current version: 00.10.003
Version date: -n/a-
License: Freeware
Download File size: 15.8 Mb
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista,
Macintosh, OS/2, Linux/Unix
Additional Software Required: Java (downloadable from http://sun.java.com) Tor is included in the zip file and integrated. After installation use your choice of browser, and for complete privacy remember to clean out the cache, cookies and history when finished.
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it should run without problems on 64 bit environments.
Portable Version Available: Yes
Non-English languages supported: German, French, Dutch, Czech and Russian.
Other relevant information: None
OperaTor
Website: http://archetwist.com/en/opera/operator
Download Link: http://archetwist.com/en/opera/operator - direct links are best avoided as new versions make old links redundant.
Author: Arche Twist
Current version: 3.2
Version date: August 29, 2008
License: Freeware
Download file size: 7 Mb
Operating Systems Supported: All Windows
Additional Software Required: None, Opera 9.5.2, Tor 0.2.0.30 and Polipo (caching proxy) are included in the zip file and integrated into OperaTor
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it should run without problems on 64 bit environments.
Portable Version Available: Yes, download the zip file and unpack it.
Non-English languages supported: Yes, many.
Tor
Website: http://www.torproject.org/
Download Link: http://www.torproject.org/download.html
Author: Tor Project
Current version: 0.1.2.19
Version date: January 17, 2008
License: BSD Freeware (information on website)
Download file size: 6.6 Mb
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista,
Mac OS, Linux/Unix
Additional Software Required: None. After installation, use your choice of browser, and for complete privacy remember to clean out the cache, cookies and history when finished.
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it should run without problems on 64 bit environments.
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English languages supported: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Suomi, during installation with all the same and a number more supported during operation.
UltraSurf
Website: http://ultrareach.com
Download Link: http://ultrareach.com
Author: UltraReach
Current version: 8.9
Version date: July 4, 2008
License: Freeware
Download file size: 201 Kb
Operating Systems Supported: All Windows
Additional Software Required: None, it uses Internet Explorer by default, but you after installation, you can use your choice of browser, and for complete privacy remember to clean out the cache, cookies and history when finished.
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it should run without problems on 64 bit environments.
Portable Version Available: Yes, download the zip file and unpack it.
Non-English languages supported: None
Vidalia
Website: http://vidalia-project.net
Download Link: http://vidalia-project.net
Author: Vidalia development team
Current version: 0.1.6
Version date: July 8, 2008
License: Freeware
Download file size: 7 Mb
Operating Systems Supported: All Windows
Additional Software Required: None, Tor and Privoxy are included in the installation file and integrated. After installation, use your choice of browser, and for complete privacy remember to clean out the cache, cookies and history when finished.
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it should run without problems on 64 bit environments.
Portable Version Available: No, however it can be copied after installation. Privoxy will need to be launched manually, and the location of Tor will need to be changed in the Vidalia configuration if it is copied to a different location that where it was installed.
Non-English languages supported: Yes, Bulgarian, Finnish, French, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Swedish.
XeroBank Browser
Website: http://www.xerobank.com/xB_browser.html
Download Link: http://update.xerobank.com/distro/XeroBank/xB-Browser_latest.exe
Author: XeroBank
Current version: 2.0.0.14b
Version date: March 4, 2008
License: Freeware, however a subscription service is available which provides additional features and dedicated high speed servers.
Download file size: 10.4 Mb
Operating Systems Supported: Windows NT and Later
Additional Software Required: None
64 Bit Capable: No specific 64 bit version is available, however it has been reported to run without problems on 64 bit environments, but the homepage blog also reports some 64bit problems.
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English languages supported: One user has reported that 36 different languages are supported, though I have not yet personally verified this statement.
Incognito LiveCD
Website: http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/
Download Link:
Author:
Current version:
Version date:
License:
Download file size:
Operating Systems Supported:
Additional Software Required:
64 Bit Capable:
Portable Version Available:
Non-English languages supported:
Related Topics:
- Best Free Web Browser
- Best Free Browser Protection Utility
- Best Free Browser Scrubber
- Best Free Route Tracer
- Article: How to improve your security when using a public terminal
This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Allan Marillier. Registered site visitors can contact Allan by clicking here.
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When using Opera Tor is the link between the originating computer and the first relay encrypted? I don't see the golden padlock at the bottom of the page that indicates an encrypted connection.
TNX
Hi folks:
I have just down loaded and used Opera Tor for the first time, and other than being slow it seemed to work just fine, and with a minimum of bother on my part... that's a good thing. My question is this: It's my understanding that when using Opera Tor the link between my computer and the first relay is encrypted... but I don't see the little golden padlock at the bottom of the page that indicates an encrypted connection. I've checked the Proxy and everything else, all seems to be working properly, it just seems that I'm transmitting in the clear till I get past the first relay. Is that right? By the way I just run into this web site a week or so ago, and absolutely love it (which may be a felony in the state where I live)!
XXX
OperaTor can be somewhat slow, but you will find that any of the other browsing services like XeroBank, JonDo, or any browser using any part of the Tor network of proxies will have slowdowns. This is for a combination of reasons, a few being that you are increasing the distance between you and the web server you are browsing, adding the overhead of every server in between, and dealing with network congestion along the way as other users like you are also using the anonymizing proxies.
Distance may seem like a minor issue, you connect to the internet and the internet gets you there - but start thinking further and you will see how it adds up. If for example you live in New York, connect using OperaTor which first routes you to a proxy in California, which in turn routes you to a proxy in Germany, then to Korea, and finally back to Canada, it will take significantly longer for the light pulses to travel via fiber optic cables along all that distance than if you had just the direct connection, or even one intermediate proxy. Remember that you are limited by the speed of light along the fiber optic cables, and the more intermediate "hops" you introduce, along with the routers and switches and copper LAN cables for the proxy servers, the more delays you introduce. If you only depended on a single packet being sent, you would never notice it, but once you start transferring a page full of text along with a bunch of binary files such as images, you increase the delays.
Any of these truly mask IP#'s? I've heard most do not.
I don't believe that anything can ever truly mask IPs, but if the proxies behave as they are intended to, each proxy in the chain only passes on what the next system needs to know so that the full path back to you is never known by any server other than the first one you connect to. If you pass through just one proxy and it truly does what it is intended to, the web server you connect to will only know that the proxy requested a page. if you pass through two or more proxies, each one only knows about the one immediately before it.
Even if you spoofed MAC and IP addresses, there would still be some amount of trail leading back to you, including such things as your computer name if somebody chose to make use of that. If Javascript is enabled in the browser, the world is potentially open to the web server and any Javascript apps embedded in any pages, another reason I would be very unlikely to use Internet Explorer for any browsing where I really wanted to be as secure and anonymous as possible.
Of course it is somewhat ironic that while I took an interest in anonymous browsing a long time ago when Gizmo was still running the whole Tech Support Alert alone, I really have very little if ever any real need to make use of anonymous browsing, and anyway can't do it from a work environment as work proxy servers filter very effectively to protect company resources, as they should.
Hi
Now that Google Chrome is released, would you place it in this list? I am referring specifically to its incognito mode. Thanks
BK
Sorry for the delay in responding. I have not looked at google chrome yet so I would be guilty of misinformation if I tried telling you anything much about it. My understanding is that incognito mode is no more than clearing (or rather not caching or in any way recording) all history of activity. I don't believe it has any anoymizing proxy capabilities, however I could be wrong. As far as I know chrome simply connects like any other browser, but it may also mask some specific computer information. Details like your IP address, ISP etc will never be completely masked even with services such as Tor, the trail is simply obfuscated by having multiple proxies in the route which don't record or divulge anything to either side of themselves other than the data packets being sent.
I have a question:
I see that these tools allow for privacy, but what effect do they have on malware, adware, etc? Do malwares get caught in the proxy or do they jump into my computer as usual?
These utilities are purely for anonymous browsing. You still need other anti-virus/ad/malware/spam tools to complement these. A good option is to use Firefox with Javablock, Adblock etc together with Vidalia or JonDo, but I would still rely on other utilities to protect against nasties.
Hi
Could you clarify what you mean when you say Vidalia "may not have the same level of anonymizing as JonDo."? Is JonDo more secure?
Thanks
Vidalia simply ties you into the Tor network. It is hard to say for sure which is more secure, or which networks and proxies have the best and securest configurations. JonDo uses some dedicated proxy servers (in the subscription based model) which may give better levels of security simply because the user is paying for a dedicated service. Then too, that is not necessarily true. Since we are using browsers for the proxy serving, we can't easily use tools like traceroute to find how many hops are involved, and which servers are being used to verify the exact paths our traffic takes. JonDo had a little meter showing the anonymity level as Ok, Fair or high which gives us a clue as to how their program is reporting the level of security. That meter may be reporting something meaningful, it may be simply giving us a false sense of security.
Hi
But I'm not sure how that means it provides better privacy, because you said yourself most of the facts are uncertain.
a-squared scan today reports OperaTor3.1 as being infected with this trojan: Spy.Win32.Agent.bqt
With software like anonymous browsing, firewalling and many others, false positives are fairly common, especially based on the potentially unusual behavior these apps use compared to other normal everyday tools. Symantec antivirus corporate, AVG free and others show OperaTor 3.1 and every previous version I have used as being uninfected. I almost always use http://jotti.org now to scan any new downloads like this, and sometimes see two or three warnings out of 15 or 20 virus scanners. I don't believe there is any threat at all in OperaTor, if I did I would not be using it myself and recommending it to others, but thanks for the heads up anyway.
In the list of foreign languages supported by JonDo, "Pycck" means Russian. Just so you know.
Thank you! There is something new to learn every day.
Hi
"generally require booting" for the LiveCDs. I'm not sure about Incognito and others, but XBMachine definitely does not require a reboot. It uses QEMU (I think) to make a virtual machine automatically.
Thanks
xB Browser is not infected, Jotti is just zealous. It contains a firewall detector that some virus scanners are afraid of. It uses the firewall detector to find out if you have one, incase you have a problem connecting. Nothing to be worried about.
Some of the information in the article is wrong. xB Browser works great on 64-bit, and will be released for Mac and Linux in August. It includes support for 36 languages, and works on windows 98 to Vista, and will currently run on Mac and Linux using windows emulation, and in addition to Tor, it also support SSH and OpenVPN connections. It offers infinitely stronger performance over OperaTor, including both java proxy redirecting, search & destroy against flash based cookies, MIME type protection. Not to mention, unlike OperaTor, it is open source, whereas OT has no source available. As for the XeroBank network it uses dedicated servers with channel-multiplexing and multi-jursidictional hops to avoid logging even in data retention countries, all at uncapped broadband speeds.
Hi
This comment seems very postive of Xerobank! :)
"It offers infinitely stronger performance over OperaTor". I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this? OperaTor and Xerobank free both use the Tor network, so how does it have infinitely stronger performance?
"It is open source, whereas OT has no source available." The source is only useful if many experts have analysed it. If, for example, the source is available for a program but no one ever checks it, it is the same as being closed source. Also, I think it is easier for hackers to find exploits for a program if they can see the source.
"As for the XeroBank network it uses dedicated servers with channel-multiplexing and multi-jursidictional hops to avoid logging even in data retention countries, all at uncapped broadband speeds." I thought this was for the shareware version only?
Thanks
This sounds almost like a plug for XeroBank by an interested party! :-) I have made some updates to the text of the article for all the browsers and services overall. I have also installed XeroBank and started some of my own testing, where our previous information was based on another writer's knowledge and experience of it. I will be taking some time over the next week or so to look more closely at the current versions of fall of the anonymizing browsers and services and see how else we can improve the article overall.
Hi
I think live privacy CD's should also be mentioned, such as Incognito and XB Machine. Currently, they are both in beta, not very stable and I couldn't get it to work on my computer, but maybe it will work on other computers. But i think the privacy it provides is even better than just an anonymised browser.
I will take a look, thanks for the suggestion. If all they do is provide no browsing traces on the host computer then I'm not sure they would be appropriate in this category which is aimed at anonymous browsing, as in no, or difficult traces back to the host computer. A single program or live CD that simply runs a different browser or cleans the cache, cookies, browsing history etc. is not a true anonymizing capability. An anonymizing browser or service does all of those, AND masks the browsing trail by making use of a series of proxy servers which enable obscurity through a trail that can not easily be followed through web server ID and ISP monitoring, along with a commitment from the owners of the services and proxy servers that their server logs will not be made available for tracing purposes.
The need for, ethics and legality of these capabilities aside, I don't believe it is for us to question why others might want to make use of true anonymizing capabilities. For me, and possibly others it might be more of an interest than anything else.
Hi
Well, I know XB Machine has several anonymising products, including XB Browser.
However, the key thing is all of these are in beta and rather buggy, though it is a great idea (Anonymised Live CD's).
why just use google and search for "unblock website .info" after surfing just use ccleaner.
www.ak0n.tk
Mitchelle V. de la Cruz
Using ccleaner will clean the cache, visited site history, and other information, but it will not provide an anonymous surfing trail. It removes traces only from the computer you browse from, but does not mask what you are seeing and doing from others who might be listening (sniffing) on the network, as well as your physical location. Browsing via one of the many proxy servers available through a google search will do only one level of anonymizing, unless they are part of Tor or a similar service with other proxy servers in a chain.
Facilities such as JAP, Tor, OperaTor, do all the same browsing history cleanup when you exit the application, but in addition they traverse multiple proxy servers so that the web referrers and other trails are masked. With many sites, when you browse without using an anonymizing service, your IP address is detected by the web server and they customize targeted advertising based on your physical location and identify your home town and even ISP. Using an anonymizing service masks your trail so that the site you are actually browsing sees you coming from whichever proxy server is the final connection point to it, no matter how many other intermediate proxy servers pass packets back to your computer. Each proxy server in the path only knows about one on either side, upstream and downstream. The number (server load, internet bandwidth etc) of every intermediate proxy server has a direct impact on the speed of your browsing experience, so you have to make a choice - if you want the anonymous experience, you need to accept the performance degradation.
Thank's for more information about Anonymous Surfing.
- www.ak0n.tk
Anybody tried NeatSurf .
The following is a write up found on it:
NeatSurf is a powerful and easy to use IE privacy security utility it prevents writing your IE browser's history, cache, cookies, user data, etc...
When you visiting cybercafe or using any other public computer to buy something over the internet using your credit card, or entered any other sensitive information into the webbrowser's window, you cannot be absolutely sure that this information is not cached somewhere.
NeatSurf is designed to protect you in such situation, to make sure that other people cannot see your data or which sites you visit.
I have downloaded the file (40KB) and it does what its says.
I was just wanting to see if anybody else had used it and their experience with it.
I have not yet tried NeatSurf but I'll download it and try it out on my sandbox PC at home. I don't use IE much, I prefer Firefox and Opera, but it's good to hear about alternatives.
XeroBank and OperaTor are infected.
AVG Anti-Virus Free identified Worm/Autoit.AYE in OperaTor. The file was sent to AVG for analysis and the detection was confirmed. Following Gizmo's Advice for Securing Your PC, OperaTor and XeroBank were uploaded to Jotti and both programmes were found to be infected.
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