How secure is surfing the web anonymously?

Some methods to help you protect yourself from security personnel or someone who intends to monitor your surfing.

In the past, people often recited: 'On the Internet nobody knows who you really are .' But now identifying the identity of a human online has become very simple.

Never before have government agencies, websites or private businesses wanted to accurately track user activity when surfing the Web, the websites they visit are as easy as they are today. From this source of information, they can build many profiles (personal profiles) to improve your interests, hobbies and even your personal habits.

And, with the need to find information online on many websites such as Google, Yahoo . increasingly high today, your private information is more prone to look than ever.

But that does not mean you have and will become a victim. Some of the following methods help you get the habit of surfing anonymously, protecting your privacy online. You will probably find yourself a suitable way.

First, what can they know about you?

Every time you surf the Web, you will put yourself open for many curious people to look at. They will track the 'travel' process online, know what type of operating system and browser you are using, find out the hostname, discover the websites you have visited, check the History list. carefully study the Cache memory, check the IP address and use it for basic information such as geographic area . To a certain extent, Internet life is like an open, recorded book imprints in every place you go through.

Websites use a variety of techniques to collect and gather online personal information. In it, the two most basic techniques are checking the IP address and placing cookies on the user's computer. Combining an IP address with a cookie will make it easier to create a personal profile.

If you want to know what type of information is often collected by websites, see the two websites below. They often keep a close eye on your web browser, and now see what they find.

Privacy Analysis of Your Internet Connection : collect and display basic information, such as operating system, screen resolution, previously visited website, regular system settings .

• BrowserSpy : even delve into the system and record information such as whether there are some popular software on your computer (RealPlayer, Adobe Acrobat), what version is used.

Some personal information websites can find on
Privacy Analysis of Your Internet Connection

Protect yourself: surf anonymously

The best way to ensure that websites cannot collect personal information about you and your computer is to surf the web anonymously. You only need to use an anonymous proxy server as an intermediary between yourself and the websites you visit.

When using an anonymous proxy server, the browser does not contact the website directly. Instead, the browser tells the proxy server which website you want to use, the proxy server will contact the website. When viewing information on a website, you do not view it directly from the website. The website is distributed to you through the proxy server. The browser never directly contacts the Web server that holds the websites you are viewing. The website will see the IP address of the proxy server, not the real IP address of the computer. It cannot read cookies, view History lists or check the clipboard and cache because computers are not directly contacted. You can surf the web safely without any tracking.

There are three main ways to use a proxy server. You can configure the browser as a server (support software can be used to configure); or go to an 'anonymous' website to contact the server; or download software that ensures anonymity for you when using the Internet. We will examine each method in detail.

Self-anonymous with Tor

The best free software to help you anonymously surf the Web today is Tor. With Tor, all communications (not just Web surfing, but also instant messaging or other applications) are taken out, surrounding a giant network of Tor servers, called 'onion routers. . This activity continues until all curious websites or individuals cannot track your activity.

Installing Tor is quite easy. In the Tor software package, there are several other related software such as Privoxy, a proxy program. All software is self-configured. So you don't need to work much with port or road settings. When running, Tor has a small icon in the system tray. To start Tor, double-click the icon, select Star from the menu that appears; If you want to stop, you do the same, double-click the icon and select Stop.

Browsing the Web with Tor is like using the Internet normally. If you don't believe it, you can regularly change Tor's 'identity' to make it more difficult for those who want to peek and track your whereabouts. Just right-click on the Tor icon, then select ' New Identity ' to finish.

Tor also has an interesting bandwidth tool. It has no effect on anonymity but instead functions to illustrate bandwidth usage. Right-click the Tor icon, select Bandwidth Graph. You can see this tool activity, along with the right-click context menu.

For FireFox users, download Torbutton. This tool will help you turn on / off Tor directly from within the browser.

However, Tor has a drawback: sometimes it will slow down your Web surfing speed. But if protecting personal information is preferred, you should use it.

Tor keeps personal information safe when surfing the Web with expanded bandwidth illustration

Websites allow you to surf anonymously freely

Some websites provide anonymous Web surfing tools for free through proxy servers. The benefit from this activity is clear: no matter where and when you use the Web, you are always anonymous. But there are also some drawbacks. Speed ​​tends to be slower, and in some cases is very slow. When using these websites, some do not display exactly and match as expected.

The way the websites work is quite similar. Open the website, in a box, type the name of the website you want to visit, then you can surf the Internet anonymously. The website will use anonymous proxy server for you.

The Cloak is such a website. It allows you to precisely customize the way anonymously, use or remove any Web surfing technique; It can also protect you with other methods such as turning off Java, JavaScript, or even removing banner ads. As shown in the illustration below, you can configure it all yourself before you start surfing the Web.

Web surfing configuration anonymously with Cloak

After configuration is complete, type the website address you want to use, you will be anonymous. Notice the Address bar on your browser, you will see a rather strange URL, containing Cloak's URL and the website you are trying to use. For example, if you want to visit the CNN website, you will see the link in the form:

http://www.the-cloak.com/Cloaked/+cfg=31/http%3A//www.cnn.com/

Note that if you want to remain anonymous during the Web surfing time, after you have visited the first website from Cloak, you can only click on the links. If you type the URL directly into the address bar, Cloak will no longer work.

The Cloak is free but has some limitations. You will be surfing the web more slowly than usual and slowing down is becoming more and more noticeable. One of the slow reasons here is that the website has to register to pay for the service and therefore it will gradually reduce the number of free users. And this website may limit the amount of time you spend surfing anonymously, depending on how many users are accessing it at the same time.

Use anonymous proxies in the browser

If you do not like being imposed limits on your use of websites such as Cloak or any other similar service when you need to surf the web anonymously, you can easily set your own browser to use the server. anonymous proxy when surfing the web.

To use an anonymous proxy server in the browser, you first need to find an appropriate proxy server. There are hundreds of free public server servers that can be used, but many of them are down or very slow to use. Some websites offer proxy lists like Public Proxy Servers and Atom InterSoft's proxy server list. If you want to search more, you can use Google search engine.

For me, I prefer the Atom InterSoft list because it provides more information about each server. In addition, this list has a higher utilization rate and has a tool to check whether the proxy is still active.

After finding the appropriate proxy server, you can adjust your browser.

In Internet Explorer, select Tools > Internet Options , select Connections > LAN Settings tab . Check the box for ' Use a proxy server for your LAN '. In the Address section enter the proxy's IP address. At Port enter the port number, check the ' Bypass proxy server for local addresses ' box because you will not need to be anonymous in the local network itself. Double click OK to close the window. Now you can surf the web safely because the proxy server will protect your personal information. When using a proxy like this, you may be surfing the web more slowly, depending on the proxy used.

Set up anonymous web surfing in Internet Explorer

In FireFox, select Tools > Advanced , click on the Network tab and select the Settings button. Next is ' Manual proxy configuration ' and enter the proxy information (IP address, port number) and press OK twice.

Problems with anonymous proxy server

If you've set up your browser to use anonymous proxies as described above, you need to consider some potential dangers. Theoretically, hackers can completely set up a proxy server, then use it to package the information and website you visited. If you type the username and password, you may be stolen information.

Although any event in practice is documented to validate this possibility, it is entirely possible. However, using some software like Tor or a free proxy server like Cloak does not put you at risk. Only when using public proxy servers can that happen.

How do you deal with this situation? Before using a proxy server, search on Google for its name and address to see if there is an article, what information shows that the hacker used it. You can also use a server with the attention of being on the list for a long time. Because hackers often don't like to run a server for too long without catching it or turning it off.

What can you do?

There are a number of other ways to help protect anonymous online activity. If you are worried that your searches may be kept and used by search engines or government organizations, see the article ' 7 keep your Search History safe '.

If you want to send an e-mail anonymously so that no one can find out what has been sent, you can use an email sender like AnonEmail of Anonymouse (Web-based) or QuickSilver (downloadable).

There are also many other costly anonymous services, such as Anonymizer and Anonymizer Nyms service. These services will help you use a disposable e-mail address to protect your real e-mail identity.

And finally the English documents. You can refer to the Electronic Privacy Information Center's online privacy guidelines online. On their website there are many links that provide software and websites to help you protect your privacy.