Internet Anonymity Services and Privacy Solutions

Anonymisierungs

German language service. Proves the preconception that slick design must not be intuitively usable. Too bad. Supports SSL

Anonymizer.com

One of the oldest and most well known commercial anonymous HTTP proxy provider with free services and SSL support. Somewhat obtrusive appearance. No software installation required.

Be hidden

Free traffic-limited HTTP proxy. Encrypts URLs, which don´t even show up in the browser history.

Browzar

If your sole intention is to leave no traces on the Windows PC used for browsing the web, this is a very clever solution. Browzar is a complete webbrowser packed into a single executable file. It´s extremely small footprint of 217 KByte allows it even to be downloaded on demand or to be executed directly from a network drive. By internally using the IE engine it renders most webpages correctly, including those using ActiveX, Java or Flash. Upon termination, all cookies, autocomplete data, cache, history and other files are deleted automatically.

CallingHome

Open Source tool to make and maintain a stable SSH connection via a SSH server to any PC located behind a firewall. This secure connection may then be used to effectively tunnel any TCP/IP port traffic through firewalls and NAT routers. Too bad that It requires MS.Net Framework.

Cloak

HTTP proxy provider, less commercially oriented than others sites and has SSL support. Free service is somewhat slow. No software installation required.

cotse.net

Paid privacy service with anonymous email, multiple domains, PGP encryption, spam protection and SSH tunnelling for port based traffic. The absense of exaggerated claims in combination with thorough information about their services makes cotse stand out clearly from the crowd.

findnot.com

Hastily cobbled website that tries to scare people by showing them how their current ip address is precisely traceable to a specific geographic location. Our location (Berlin, Germany) was consistently located either in China ("close to Bejing") or "close to Holliwood, Florida, United States". Very convincing, indeed.

Guardster

Anonymizing HTTP proxy service with toolbar for controlled blocking of cookies, images, ads and scripts. SSL is available in paid subscription service. Free service is heavily clustered with ads.

HTTPort

Free Client and Server program to transport any TCP port traffic (not just web browsing) encrypted over a HTTP tunnel. HTTPort works quite well but shows unnecessary large latency times. With public servers it is almost unusable due to their slowness. This interesting concept is not appropriate for beginners.

http-Tunnel

Commercial software solution to tunnel traffic from SOCKS compatible applications (such as web browsers) through company firewalls and http proxies. No information about encryption available.

Hujico tip

Free ad-financed HTTP proxy with URL scrambling.

iPrive.com

Commercial site with a broad range of privacy solutions

JAP

One of the best privacy software solutions available, even though development is not yet quite finished. The service is still free at the moment, but operation is not very fast and lacks availability. They are working on a promising concept with multiple proxies (mixes). Servers are located in Germany. You should definitely try this out.

MegaProxy

Commercial HTTP proxy provider with fast, free SSL access. Disables the browser URL-Window in order to avoid browsing inadvertently unsecured. No software installation required.

Metropipe Tunneler

Commercial service with promising concept and high ethical claim. We hope to have a review shortly.

Mezzy

Free ad-financed anonymous search and surf service. Supports HTTP and FTP only and transfers the visited page URL in clear text. After browsing the first page, there is no way to enter another URL.

Mr. Privacy

Free ad-financed HTTP proxy leaving URLs visible

Proxify

Paid HTTP proxy service. A large Info area allows for easy selection of security filters, such as Java and ad blocking, but eats up lots of desktop viewing space. Supports SSL; no software installation required.

SaferSurf.com

Fully commercial service with aggressive marketing, targeting the technically less inclined. Offers broad range of privacy solutions; multilingual.

Surfeasy

Surprisingly fast, free anonymizing service. Scrambles URLs and stands out in replacing / masking all browser information in ACCEPT and USER_AGENT strings.

TheStrongestLinks

New US based Web Anonymizer with URL scrambling and interesting features such as Meta, Referer and Title handling features.

Tor

Very well documented open source toolkit for anoymizing arbitrary IP traffic while traversing the internet. Uses a mechanism called “Onion Routing” where TCP streams are broken up and their packets being sent through a random network of Tor-Servers, similar to the “Mix”-concept of JAP. For anonymous surfing you must install additional proxy software, such as Privoxy. The effective throughput is surprisingly high.

Steganos Internet Anonym Pro

Commercial client software that continuously switches between a number of external proxy servers located all over the world. Steganos has severe security deficits. Test report (German)

thevirtualbrowser

Free anonymizing service. Scrambles URLs and masks browser information. Features easy menu bar configuration and offers a Mozilla Firefox Extension.

Ultimate Anonymity

Commercial anonymity service located in Florida, promising life-time access for a small one-time fee.

Unipeak

Very fast, free Web-Anonymizer with URL-encryption. It is not yet rock-stable but looks promising.

your-freedom

Your Freedom is a complete http-ssl-tunnel solution based on a proprietary java-based client sortware. Free services are speed-limited to 64kb/s, more bandwidth is available at a reasonable charge. Your Freedom supports http, https, socks and a unique and easily configurable port forwarding mechanism. IP traffic is completely ssl-encrypted and routed over a network of automatically changing proprietary proxies. We rate speed, usabilty, functionality and speed as excellent.