PC tips n tricks

We all know that while surfing Internet we leave our information and whereabouts behind us in the form of IP addresses in the log files on the remote web servers of the sites that we visit. But did you know that this may unknowingly lead you into trouble? How? - Let’s quickly run through a list of scenarios wherein you might want to browse Internet in anonymous mode.

• You work for an organization and have been working from a different country. For security reasons your company does not want to let anyone know that you connect to their servers. For this reason alone, you will be required to connect as an anonymous user who can not be traced back.
• You work for defense department and connect to the office network from home. You may wish to connect anonymously to protect your identity.
• You are visiting your competitor’s website and do not wish to leave anything behind you that can help your competitor determine your visit to their website. In this situation you may want to visit their website as if you were surfing through anonymous proxy server.

The above mentioned scenarios are just few of the hundreds of reasons because of which you may want to surf the Internet as an anonymous user. Now let’s look at how do we become anonymous.

Using Tor: anonymous internet software

Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Since it uses a distributed and anonymous network, no single point on Internet can link you to your destination. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it’s going.

Installing Tor on your system: Browsing anonymous

You will have to download and install the Tor application bundle that will also install aTorbutton plugin for your Firefox browser (using Firefox browser is highly recommended). Post which you may configure your other applications that you want to protect and anonymize, that’s it.

» [Download Tor] | [Documentation of Tor]

Tired of looking at same menu for very long? Try the [Personal Menu], a free Firefox Add-on that will let you hide existing menus in the Firefox tool bar and design your own menus with few settings to work with. There is a history and a bookmark button.

However, the tool bar items that you hide might still appear upon a restart of Firefox but that requires a change of setting to change the delay before hiding and you should be all set with it.

If some of the menu items are not replaced to their original location after you hide the menu, just take a back up of ‘menuedit.rdf’ in your profile’s folder and then delete it.

Did you know that you can create your own, private and secured network over the Internet? Your private network can have its own members, password, applications, you decide who joins it and not only that, it’s free.

We are talking about an application called Hamachi which is in fact a Virtual Private Networking application enabling you to create your own private network over the Internet.

Before we get to know how it works, let’s see its features:

• Ability to run almost any application in your private network on Internet that you run on your local network at home or office. Examples of such applications are VNC, File Sharing, Intranet Messenger, Web Servers or even Gaming.
• Industry standard encryption algorithms to secure over private network. Once a network is created, the communication remains private amongst the members of the network only.
• The private network can be created any time you need it.
• Very small in size, less than 1MB for Windows.

How does Hamachi work?

You will have to download Hamachi software that will run on your systems. This software, when run for the first time, will connect to Hamachi servers to obtain an identity and from next time onwards it registers itself on the Hamachi network. After which it becomes easy for anyone to find and join your network. Your friends can simply key in the password and join your private network.

[Website of Hamachi] » [Download Hamachi]