Web / Proxy Anonymizers…

[retroborg]

Ciao,
I was wondering which are the best and most reliable Proxy Anonymizers, Anonymizer tools / software & solutions in generals, for one to completely cover his/her online tracks from their ISP, hide your IP, to be able to send / receive e-mails, browse sites like Facebook, download / upload files & surf the web 100% anonymously? (Preferably free)

Thanks in advance

[Blastuk]

Can't say I know what I'm talking about but I don't think you can hide from your ISP with proxies.. a VPN would probably be better suited..

[arthurleung]

Possibly something like this?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=902083

WHT's search is a bit buggered at the moment...but surely there are plenty other offers around.

Make sure you find one thats in europe though, otherwise the speed will suck.

And I wouldn't recommend you use paypal / online banking through VPN as you could be flagged in the system for being in the wrong country (assuming non-UK VPN)

If you can't trust those VPN providers, you can buy a VPS yourself then setup your own VPN for about the same price.

[Perfectionist]

If someone is determined enough to bribe/have contacts in ISP companies to find out information on you they are going to find out you are using a VPN anyway and what one, then it's just a case of matching up your real name with your payment details to the company that supplies the VPN on their end and monitoring the data going through the IP allocated to your account

[aidanjt]

I think you be looking for Tor. But the network is horribly abused by morons and bots, so it can be a tad on the slow/unreliable side.

[arthurleung]

If someone is determined enough to bribe/have contacts in ISP companies to find out information on you they are going to find out you are using a VPN anyway and what one, then it's just a case of matching up your real name with your payment details to the company that supplies the VPN on their end and monitoring the data going through the IP allocated to your account

There is always an off-shore option if you're willing to pay a lot (anonymously).
Or chaining a few VPNs together to increase the number of ISPs "someone" have to bribe through.
I guess that is as far as you can go legally and any more "protection" will become illegal.

Really if you are that scared of the web don't use it...

[retroborg]

I just checked anonymouse and concerning the ISP, it says:

http://anonymouse.org/faq.html#7

7. Am I anonymous to my provider?
No, Anonymouse offers anonymity before the target/recipient. However, the provider is of course bound to the respective data protection acts, secrecy of letters, etc. . The provider is usually only allowed to process the data transmitted by the users if it is necessary for the solution of technical problems.

The VIP-Version of Anonymouse supports encryption (HTTPS/SSL/TLS), where the data is transferred encrypted from your browser to the Anonymouse server and your provider can not decrypt this data.
http://anonymouse.org/vip.html

[Jay]

what you really need is a VPS solution with either a VPN or remote desktop. Its not free though

[DevAnubis]

I think you be looking for Tor. But the network is horribly abused by morons and bots, so it can be a tad on the slow/unreliable side.

Definitely.

The Onion Router bounces traffic through a network of volunteer relays, before releasing it to the outside internets. Traffic is encrypted so nodes can't sniff on what they're forwarding for you. The only weakness to the network is if both ends are being watched, which means that "they" need to know which exit-node you're using, and as you can alter the route through the network its very hard to do.


As aidanjt said though, the network is slow. There's a lot of people putting time into it, volunteering their bandwidth so others can browse and communicate anonymously. But there's also people who'll abuse it to "anonlymise" P2P downloads (putting massive loads on the network). That said, its not abysmally slow.

http://www.torproject.org

[retroborg]

How exactly do I change / spoof my MAC to a legitimate MAC of a manufacturer other than my Wifi adapter's? Is there actually a list with all the legitimate MAC addresses for all manufacturers out there?

I was also told that there's always the danger of Java (different from Javascript) or other embedded applets which generally do not proxy (unless you use a VPN), so in the case of a web based anonymizer, there's the potential for leaking local information, so it's always good to disable them.

So I disabled “Scripting of Java applets” in the internet zone security settings, custom level, of IE8 in WinXP Pro & Win Vista Business (Security level for this zone: Medium-High), but there are also many Active X controls & plug-ins, .NET Framework, active scripting, filters and a bunch of other components that are enabled, but I’m not quite sure what each one does and weather I should disable them or not?
What other applets should I disable?
Should I just set the Security level for this zone to: "High" and disable everything?

Or Maybe Mozilla firefox would be the safest way to go as far as privacy is concerned?

Thanks in advance