Proximize

If you want to protect your anonymity online then learning, 'how to hide my IP address' is a very good start. Unfortunately if that's where you stop you'll have wasted your time and if you do like many thousands of would be ninja surfers do, connect to a free anonymous proxy and that's it - you have actually made your surfing way less secure.

<b>So Why should I Hide My IP Address</b>

Your IP address is your identity card on the internet, it is an address that ties exactly to your computer at any given time on the internet.   So if you visit any web site on  the internet that address will be listed in the logs of that server, basically if someone took teh effort they could come up with a list of real people from those logs.

Now a lot of people are not terribly keen on this and would rather have some semblance of privacy when browsing.   So this is where anonymous proxies come in, this is a server that sits in between  your computer and the web sites you are visiting.  So when you surf the address of the web server is registered and not your own IP address, which means you are anonymous to the web site you are visiting.

<B>Sounds Great, Anonymity is that easy ?</B>

Well alas no, in fact there's many pitfalls and the one that most people fall into is using free anonymous proxies.   The problem with using a proxy server is although you are not registered at the website you visit, you are in fact creating a huge and complete list of your web browsing on the proxy server.  Every single piece of data you send from your browser, every password, every account name, every destination is listed on that proxy server.

<b>So the Anonymous Proxy Server has to be incredibly secure ? </b>

Absolutely you are putting all your trust in this one server, it's like handing over all your electronic details to one individual.  Instead of your data going directly to the web server absolutely everything goes through this server, who obviously have your IP address logged and a connection to you.

<b>So how do People pick an Anonymous Proxy to use? </b>

Well unfortunately many type in 'free anonymous proxy' into google and pick one from the many lists on the internet.  They'll know nothing about it apart from it's free and they'll rarely stop to think that they are creating a huge personalised log on a single server that they know nothing about.

These free servers are rarely secure, mostly they are misconfigured or hacked servers.  It's a great way to steal usernames and passwords - hack a server, install a proxy then log the data of every poor surfer who sends all their data to it.   Great for spreading viruses, trojans, spam and malware as well.

Basically if you think I want to hide my IP address and have the choice of a free anonymous proxy(that you picked off a list) or just surfing as normal, the latter is by far the most secure.
If you want to surf securely and safely - you can read about a product called  Identity Cloaker here -  http://www.ngbconsult.co.uk/Privacy/index.html

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Internet Privacy Blog

Surf safely, protect your privacy,


Jim