Browse Securely and Privately

How to browse the web while maintaining your privacy and confidentiality (at least to some extent)? The quick answer is use onion an routing protocol such as Tor that will encrypt your connections, and use a number of proxy nodes to make traffic analysis very difficult. Perhaps this image will give you a better idea of how it works:

So how do you get yourself torrified? It is surprisingly easy these days. First download the tor bundle from the official website. The package includes the 3 essential applications:

1. Tor proper – which does the onion routing
2. Privoxy – which intercepts stuff like DNS queries
3. Vidalia – a GUI tor control app

All of these can be installed simultaneously. Once you are set up go get the FoxTor extension which will automatically reconfigure your browser with correct proxy settings at a press of a button.

Now whenever you feel like browsing anonymously, simply run Vidalia, Privoxy and then hit the little TorFox button in your status bar.

If you don’t think it’s working go to showmyip.com before and after hitting the TorFox icon. You will see that your IP will change. Furthermore, there is a very good chance that your new apparent IP will belong to an ISP located in a completely different state.

[tags]tor, privoxy, vidalia, privacy, proxy, private browsing, anonymity, onion routing[/tags]