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Take back your privacy surfing the Internet. Part II: Tips and Tricks to Protecting Your Privacy Surfing the Net
by B.M. QUENUM
Previous delivery briefly explained "Why You Need to Surf Anonymously"
This issue exposes tips and tricks that help you do that for pennies.
There are basically two kinds of clients/software that assist surfing anonymously: (1) Clients which do not install; and (2) clients that need install. Both categories are anti-censorship or (anti-jamming) products, that enable users inside countries with heavy Internet censorship to visit any public web sites in the world safely and freely, or permits users in so-called "free democratic countries" to surf unnoticed and invisible.
The first category is composed of .exe files that
sit on your system opening way to anonymous surfing. The most popular, below listed, are available for free download at the website an anti-censorship consortium called: InternetFreedom:
•UltraSurf
•FreeGate
•GTunnel
•FirePhoenix
•GPass
Important tip: Even if they do not install, some do "inject" proxy settings into Internet Explorer proxy configuration (Tools/ Internet Options/ LAN Settings) that remain after you log off. And when you fire up your browser, without activating the anonymous surfing exe file, the presence of said settings may impede the browser to load pages. That is very annoying if you do not know what is going on. To solve the matter, one needs to start the system in Safe Mode, in order to remove the input in LAN settings.
The second category of anonymous surfing client, is more sophisticated, in the sense that there is an install process prior to using them; however, they do not inject input/ in the browser (Tools/ Internet Options/ LAN Settings). Instead, they open up a new network channel to connecting to a remote proxy in a foreign country.
The new added connection grants a new IP address to your desktop, independent from the IP address allocated to you by your local/national Internet Service Provider (ISP), that sometimes is undetectable by your local/national ISP. These sophisticated anonymous surfing clients are collectively named Virtual Private Network (VPN).
The advantage of using a VPN is that your computer is virtually located in another country than the actual one. That is, you can be virtually located in the UK, in the United States of America or elsewhere in the world at large, when actually you and your computer are residing in an African country, in China or in Eastern Europe.
Some may ask what is the point of acquiring an additional IP address in a foreign country? Well, as you may know, the Internet's content is not universal. That is what you are allowed to view, depends on your residing country. In other words, some contents are reserved for national of certain countries and the authorities in some countries filter the content entering their country. In some countries for instance you cannot use Skype Internet Phone or the likes.
And when you do log in to a specific "abroad" URL with your national IP address, that IP address is immediately spotted and you are denied viewing the content. Try for instance to view contents from hulu.com, residing in an African country, using your local IP address, and you shall see why you need to surf anonymously with a Virtual Private Network that grants dedicated IP address independent from your local national IP address.
Some VPN are free. They are not the best and are not undetectable. As always "you get what you pay for." Several VPN require paid-registration. Even for these paid-registrations, some are better than others. Bing or google for anonymous VPN, to find out what is affordable to your wallet. There are some jewels around for few bucks. For instance, you can acquire astounding VPN for peanuts. It is up to you. Try for instance VPNaccounts and watch hulu.com from anywhere at the world at large, anonymously and at high speed, undetected by your national ISP. You can also acquire VPN bandwidth with alwaysVPN.
ABOUT THE AUTOR: Dr. Bienvenu-Magloire Quenum is a Business
Planner/ the principal of Dr.
Quenum & Associates, IBC. He accumulated a vast computing experience
dating back to the late mid 1980s, and is sharing it with visitors to this site since
1997. You may request assistance for day-to-day computing tips login
to the support board available at this link. And thanks you for visiting the "Control your Desktop" section of Africabiz Online.
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