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It doesn’t matter why you want to preserve your privacy on your computer. Whatever your reason, follow these instructions and your activities will be kept more private than they are right now. Use these methods only when you are browsing information that you would like kept private. Another great way to keep your activities private is to use an amazing program called Privacy Control.
Using the methods listed in this report in conjunction with Privacy Control, you will be operating in stealth mode
Browsers Forget your web browser. Simple? Whatever program you use to browse the web, stop using it. If you are on a shared computer, everyone uses the same browser to browse the web, which means that they have access to your bookmarks and browsing history.
Instead, go out and buy a USB flash drive at your local electronics store. These little drives are portable storage that you can carry with you and plug into any computer that you want to use. Generally, people use these little devices to transfer information back and forth between computers but it can also be used to install portable applications that you can use on any computer you want. Presently, your web browser is installed on your computer, meaning that it stays on your computer and is accessible by anyone that uses that computer. If you install a web browser on your portable drive, then you have a portable web browser that is only accessible on a computer in which it is plugged in. When you unplug it, all traces of it disappear on the computer.
Download the portable Firefox browser here: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
Once downloaded, plug in your USB drive, and jot down the drive letter that is associated with it. The drive letter is the letter code that Windows assigns any storage on your computer. Generally, Windows will use C: for your hard drive, D: for your CD drive and so on. You flash drive can generally be your E: or F: drives. To find out, just go to “My Computer” and look for an icon that represents your flash drive and the letter for your drive will be listed right next to it. Install the program you downloaded above and when prompted for where you want to install it to, simply give it the drive letter for your flash drive. Voila! Once installed, all you have to do is find the FirefoxPortable.exe icon in your flash drive and double click it. You now have a fully portable and private web browser to do whatever you want to do with it.
Now read carefully. A portable browser will do the following:
- Your browsing history is stored on the flash drive
- Your bookmarks are stored on the flash drive
- Only you have access to the browser
- There are no traces of the flash drive in the computer when the drive is unplugged
- You can use your browser on any computer that you plug the drive into.
Downloads Do not EVER download any movies or pictures or any other file that you want to keep private on the local computer. If you really want to store things that you have downloaded off the Internet, store them on the flash drive. This way, whenever you unplug the flash drive, your documents are inaccessible to anyone else using the computer and you have access to them anywhere you take your drive with you. If you download a movie to your local computer, anyone on the computer may view it. On your flash drive, you are the only one that has access to those files.
Email For the love of all things Holy, use web mail. Do not use programs like Outlook to get your email if you wish to keep things private on a shared computer. Using your portable browser, just go to your favourite web mail site like www.gmail.com or www.hotmail.com and access your email like that. There are many advantages to using web mail, so you should be using it anyways. Just remember to use your portable browser.
Instant Messaging Chatting is one thing that people seem to forget about when they are doing their “house cleaning”. Many chat programs will save your conversations on the hard drive and some will even go as far as automatically logging you into your account when the computer starts. Can you imagine if a co-worker or spouse were to have access to your entire contact list, or read you previous chats. Worse yet, can you imagine if someone sends you a very private chat message while you aren’t sitting right there to read it? For all things sensitive, forget about MSN Messenger or AIM. Download an instant messaging client for your portable flash drive called Pidgin available at http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/pidgin_portable.
Anonymous Browsing If you are totally paranoid and fear that someone may actually be snooping on your Internet connection to see what you are doing, you can always resort to using a proxy to connect to the Internet. The way this works is that you set up your Internet browser to connect to a server that acts as a middleman between you and the sites you are surfing. The end result is that the site you are connecting to does not see your computer directly, but rather sees a request for information coming for the middleman machine. Inversely, if anyone is spying on your actual internet connection, all they would see if that you are making many requests to this middleman server without actually seeing what you are requesting it to get.
To setup anonymous browsing, you need to go to the option panel in your web browser, which should now be on your portable flash drive. You need to find the tab called connection Network and click on the Connection button. This will prompt you for a proxy address that you can input. Where to find a proxy address? Try the site below to find a working proxy server for you: www.publicproxyservers.com
10MinuteMax is currently compiling a list of the best free proxy sites there are. Subscribe to our ProTips E-Letter to receive this exclusive list by email as soon as it is made available.
If you are a more casual browser and really only want to hide one or two sites that you use, you can try online anonymous browser sites like www.anonymizer.com. Sites like this simply ask you to input the address of the site you want to visit and it fetches it for you without appearing in your browsing history.
Best Practices OK. Now that you are all setup with your ultra secret spy flash drive, you still need to be smart about what you do and where you do it. The steps I’ve shown you above are aimed at limiting the number of electronic tracks that you leave behind. These steps however, cannot keep you from getting caught in the act by somebody. Here are some tips to consider while browsing the net.
Always have a backup window open in the background. If you hear someone is close by, then you can switch to it quickly and hide the window that you were using. If possible, setup your windows taskbar to automatically hide. This setting will make sure that if you hide a window (minimize it) that the icon on the taskbar will not show and thereby expose your activities. ALT TAB is your friend. Pressing Alt and Tab is a quick way to switch between windows without using your mouse. If you suspect someone is coming your way, press Alt and Tab to switch to your backup window. (See Point 1). ALT F4 is your friend. Pressing Alt and F4 will close any window that you are presently using. When in a panic, ALT F4 is the way to go. ALT Windows key. Pressing Alt and the Windows key (the one with the windows logo) is a quick way to minimize all your windows and simply expose your desktop. If your back is to a door when using a computer, use a mirror to see behind you. Now, without trying to look too obvious, you could always place a pair of sunglasses on the desk in front of you as to see behind you in the reflection of the glasses. Avoid earphones. If you can’t hear them, you won’t see them: Trust me! If you want to keep something private, do not do it at work. Many companies employ sophisticated methods and software that can snoop on you even if you are super safe. Don’t chance it.
You’ve Been Caught If you suspect someone is on to you, then you need to hide or dispose of your USB flash drive. You can format it, throw it in the fireplace, and drop it in the sewer or whatever you want to do. Since everything that you’ve been doing is on that drive, then disposing of it disposes of all the evidence as well. If you have actually been caught in the act of doing something, there are many ways to justify certain types of contents that are on your screen or files that may have been accidentally left behind if you haven’t been using the flash drive method. A list of plausible defences depending on the situation will be made available to our ProTips E-Letter. Subscribe to our ProTips E-Letter to receive this exclusive list by email as soon as it is made available.
Conclusion You have the right to your privacy, even if you use a computer that is shared. The methods above will go a long way towards making you safer and harder to track. There are tons of software programs out there that claim that they will wipe out all traces of what you have been doing on the computer, but none does a better job than Privacy Control. Sometimes the absence of information of activity on a computer is more suspect than the presence of some information. For example, if a spouse sees you using the computer everyday, yet sees none of the addresses you accessed or files that you downloaded while using the computer normally, wouldn’t they get a bit suspicious? Using our the 10MinutesMax methods in conjunction with Privacy Control is the best way to remain stealthy, without giving away the fact that you are keeping things private.
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