I am looking for a new program?

[Anna]

Hey everyone, I am looking for online privacy tools, I found GetAnonymous, PreventPopUp, proxyChain.

It seems to be very good but I am looking for more, so can anyone help??

www.GetAnonymous.com

[SensoVision]

Hi Anna and welcome to Webmaster Key community! Personally I didn't use any tools like this the only one is probably Outpost (firewall) which have ability to filter pop-ups and after installing plug-ins do some other thing.
But I'm sure you could find more programs you're looking for here:
http://www.inactivedomain.com/category/manage.jhtml?cid=915838
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Security/Internet/Privacy/Tools_and_Services/
and maybe some in our directory:
http://links.weblamp.net/Computers_and_Electronics/Software/Internet_Tools/Content_Filtering
if you have time I would appreciate if you submit favourite programs to Pharos Directory as I don't have time right now to search for good links myself.

[ched]

As far as firewalls go, I like Zone Alarm:
http://www.zonelabs.com

For proxy servers I've seen these listed, but don't actively use them:
http://www.anonymizer.com/
http://www.megaproxy.com/
http://www.safeproxy.org/

For cleaning out spyware I like Ad Aware

[justjeni]

I'm with Chad on AdAware - that program works really well.  I run it AND spybot - just put Spybot into google and it will bring up their site.  What do proxy servers do anyway?  doh....

[SensoVision]

from what I know proxy is just a server between you and interent. it's using for security purposes and in our country it's also used to raise a speed of connection since our providers don't have broadband connection they cache everything which come throught proxy and next time someone make request for page which was already cached by proxy this info downloading not directly from a page but from a proxy server, this way speed up process of retriving documents a bit.
But as I said before it's main purpose is security, as this server used a a gate between internal network and Internet, so when someone from internal network send request this request is contain IP not of a client but IP of proxy.
Folks please correct me if I said something wrong.

[ched]

very well explained Denis / Pheonix:
Before dedicated programs (spyware and firewalls) came into such wide use, often folks would use these "proxy" servers to surf to sites that contained a lot of "spy on you stuff" (they often tried to download cookies, or just marked your IP - then sold these IP numbers to mass mailing marketers = tons of junk spam email).  In the late 90s many ISP's would (and still do) cache popular sites so that their members could load pages quicker.  The reason they loaded quicker is because the user was pulling the graphics and pages directly from their ISP (only 1 hop to pull through), rather than going through a long string of servers (known as the backbone) to get to the server where the page was actually held.

Proxy servers were / are also used by people who want to 'send' stuff out to the Internet without their true identity being known.  If I wanted to send Microsoft a flame (email that was filled with insulting remarks) - I might go to the proxy server first, that way Microsoft couldn't tell who really sent it.

Be aware however, that there have been cases in which the company that had the proxy server was called into court - at that point they will TELL who it was that was using their services at that time.  If you do something bad enough to draw the attention of legal authorities, then there is very little you can do to hide from a true investigative team.  IP addresses can be tracked (this particular post to the weblamp forum will mark the post as being submitted by: 206.xx.x.xx.  The entire number will be available to Denis as the webmaster, should he feel that something was done that wasn't appropriate)  While a proxy server will hide the number from the computer receiving the email, post, etc., the proxy server will know it.  Simply because one computer has to know who it's talking to before it can communicate any information to it.

proxy: in substitution for.  Kind of like when you own 3 or 4 shares of stock, so when the board of directors of a company votes on company issues - they will get your vote from the stock brocker (who may own 5 or 6 thousand shares for all different clients) to submit a vote.  (Although by law they will send you a packet of info on any issues before the board) - by not returning a reply, you are voting "by proxy" - meaning the brokerage firms vote will count as your vote.

Have we bored you to tears yet?