Anonymous Surfing

Anonymous Surfing: Not just for the bad guys! You might have heard about hackers using the Dark Net, or the Deep Web to buy and sell hacking tools. That’s where anonymous surfing gets a bad rap. But for the rest of us, there can be some very good reasons to surf without leaving an identity trail behind you as you go. For instance, journalists who are researching stories or political dissidents who don’t want their government breathing down their necks. It can also be useful to just about anyone who’s concerned about their privacy in the days of every government entity, business and information service out there collecting information about you and also getting hacked.

If you’ve ever used Internet Explorer’s InPrivate browsing, Safari’s Private browsing, Google Chrome’s Incognito mode, or Firefox’s Private Window, you should know that none of these do much to protect your identity online. They simply stop your web browser from recording what you’re doing online. The sites you visit will still collect information about you such as your IP address, what type of computer (Mac, PC, Linux) you’re using, what brand and version of web browser you’re using, etc. Plus if you fill out any form online, give any information out or sign into a website, you are greatly increasing the information that online destination has about you – regardless of whether you’re browsing privately or not.

If you’re really interested in keeping what you do while surfing the internet private, then you should investigate using a private browser, such as the Tor (short for The Onion Router) browser – get it at https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en. Tor uses multiple encrypted pathways across the internet where each point only knows the last stop before and the next stop to where your data is flowing. Your internet browsing goes through multiple nodes using multiple pathways so it’s almost impossible for anyone to determine what you’re doing. You can even put this browser on a thumb drive and use it on any computer.

Another way is to use a browsing ‘proxy’ where your internet traffic is routed to a proxy who doesn’t reveal any information about you or your computer. The only problem with this is that lists of proxies changes often and it can be hard to find one that does a good job – these are often services used by our less-than-honorable netizens. For most everybody else with nothing really to hide but who just wants more control over their privacy, you’re best off using the Tor browser. But be sure to read their instructions because if you don’t use the browser correctly, you lose most or all of the additional security benefits it provides.

Disclaimer: I’m not advocating the use of anonymizing technologies for criminal behavior!