Lets talk about using proxy or VPN...

[Synergy]

So I have been doing some reading about web security/anonymity. I see there is some pay software for VPN, pay toolbars for your browser or free sites that you can view a page through a proxy.

What are you guys using? I added Proxify to Firefox and found its a pay service.

[ArmedCMT]

tagged

[Wildeman_13]

Google search TOR networks....

[Montu]

I don't use it on a regular basis because I don't feel its necessary....but when I do I use Tor

[Peter.Steele]

Private Internet Access.

[tommyboy619]

I've been using Hide My @$$ (stupid censor software) for VPN going on 2 years. Comes out to about $6 a month for annual subscription. I've never received a complaint and I use whenever I use public wifi (hotel, coffee shop, etc...)

[mossy]

Tagged

[bigbearbear]

What do you wish to protect? Just the data when you're using your browser? Or do you also want to protect other applications that uses the internet on the computer?

In general, proxy and SOCKS are supported directly by browsers. So if you want only to protect your browser data, they are pretty good.

But if you want to protect everything that uses the internet on the computer (eg. online games like Warcraft, IM software like Skype or VoIP software like Vonage softphone etc), VPNs are better as they can basically tunnel all sorts of traffic through the VPN gateway.

I typically go with VPN myself, though I've used SOCKS a couple of times when doing demos of certain products.

[Brianguy]

Private Internet Access.

Agreed. For those of you that don't want to pay: http://www.vpnbook.com/ (it's pretty slow)

I recommend not logging on to anything. Use it just for browsing or other anonymous things.

[the86d]

I typically just use https:// if I can, and I am not as worried as I used to be, as not even FB uses my real name anyway... If a site is blocked that I need access to via public WiFi, I will RDP to my home rig and just use https:...

I don't have a device or computer with it's browser's home page not set to https://www.google.com .

[Brianguy]

For FF and Chrome

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

[mindwip]

startpage is the best search engine. Make sure you use them and nit Google.

[2DoorImpala]

I use Private internet access
Doesn't seem to work well with windows 8. If my pc sleeps i have to restart it for the proxies to reset or else im really using my IP

[Vetteodyssey]

startpage is the best search engine. Make sure you use them and nit Google.

+1 for startpage. Google tracks you in dozens of different ways. Stay away from any of their affiliates too, like youtube. If you want to see how web sites are sharing your information then check out a plug-in for FF called Collusion.

For example with Collusion you can see that calguns.net, because of the imbeded youtube videos, will inform youtube about your activity. And as a result google as well. So if you use TOR to browse calguns, but NOT youtube, google still knows your IP address and because of your browser cookie knows that you visited calguns. So you really need to use TOR or some proxy server all the time, not just when you are visiting sites you might not want anybody to know about.

[Deadbolt]

Agreed. For those of you that don't want to pay: http://www.vpnbook.com/ (it's pretty slow)

I recommend not logging on to anything. Use it just for browsing or other anonymous things.

he means porno.



Literally do not use this for anything else (unless it's equally as scandalous)

VPNs are as safe as they are intrusive in terms of accessibility you provide to the VPN agent.

I have a young wife so i dont really need porno and I don't torrent (gasp!). Im a terrible human for these things and I realize it but I DO understand the security issues with "free" vpns

dont.

Spend the money, understand the terms of the contract.