Internet has allowed us to share information with people around the world. By looking at the ease of communication, sometimes, we fail to notice its dark side. As we use internet for almost all purposes like online shopping, product search, and many more, a hacker or an automated spybot could track our habits, choices, personal preferences and browsing history. According to a recent report, almost 90% of all computers have spywares that can gain access to your browsing data without your consent. This is where anonymous browsing comes into picture.
Explaining Anonymous browsing
Anonymous browsing, also known as private browsing allows you to hide your IP address and erases your browsing traces by routing the traffic over anonymous servers. This is one of the ways to be protected from traffic analysis.
Traffic analysis is an internet surveillance program that collects data without your explicit consent. This program can find out who is talking to whom over a public network by tracking your internet session.
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So, in such cases, an anonymous browsing can hide your IP address. At the same time, anonymous browsing cannot completely shield your identity from eavesdropping. Nowadays, almost all browsers have anonymous browsing facility with various protection mechanisms. But, there are also browsers like ecapsule that were developed specifically to provide complete anonymity.
1) Anonymous browsing in Internet Explorer:
The latest version of Internet explorer comes with anonymous browsing feature. In normal browsing mode, the Internet browser records all information including browsing history, cookies, passwords, cached files and many more information, that can help to reload the pages faster. But, the in-private browsing mode does not allow Internet explorer to record any of the user activities while connected to internet. You can use In-Private browsing mode by clicking on “Safety” drop down list on the top right of the browser. Then choose “In-Private Browsing” to browse the internet in private mode.
2) Anonymous browsing in Opera:
Like other browsers, Opera has an inbuilt tab for private browsing mode. You can access this tab by clicking “Tabs and Windows” -> “New private Tab“. All the browsing activities you do in this tab are deleted at the end of the browsing session. Moreover, opera has another version that comes with Tor engines.
A Tor network, also called as onion ring router, works by routing your traffic to various other users who use Tor before actually hitting the requested webpage. So this way your browsing activity is protected from hacks. You can install a Tor engine separately and configure it with Opera browser for an additional layer of anonymity.
After you download and install the Tor engine, start the Tor engine before you start the Opera browser. Then open “Preferences” in Opera browser and go to “Network.” Then click on “Advanced” tab and select “Proxy servers.”
In the proxy servers, select HTTP and fill in “localhost” and port number as 8118 and click “Ok.” After you make these changes, all your network traffic would pass through Tor network.
Anonymous browsing has both pros and cons. By using anonymous browsing, you are not allowing others to collect information about your browsing activities. But on the downside, some websites require access to cookies and other private data stored on your system to work properly. Moreover, if you have the need to share confidential or proprietary information frequently over the internet, then you have to choose browsers that are developed specifically to hide your network activities.
3) Anonymous browsing in e-Capsule
The newly launched e-Capsule is a usable and secure platform for internet surfing. This browser can be used to navigate over the internet with equal experience to the current browsers.
