Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Advice to Surf the Web Anonymously
By Ricardo D Argence (c) 2007

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, spyware 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 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 punchline, "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.

http://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 located at http://gemal.dk/browserspy/ 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 located here
(http://www.torproject.org/download.html.en). 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 never get infected or pass anything on
to their clients.

Other programs that facilitate anonymous surfing include
Guardster (http://www.guardster.com/), SnoopBlocker
(https://www.snoopblocker.com/), Mega Proxy
(http://www.megaproxy.com/) and Anonymizer
(http://www.anonymizer.com/). 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 has never 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.
================================================================
Alojate.com (http://Alojate.com) is the premier web hosting
company in Mexico, offering a range of services for all business
needs.
================================================================

Copyright © 2007 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.