Ghost on the web, anonymous internet
This is aimed at the more techie minded individuals.
Lately, being sick of the likes of google and other data harvesters, i decided i wanted a webbrowser purely for anonymous internet use, free from the beady eyes of web bugs and other trackers. I also wanted a browser i could use across the entire web without being worried about spyware and such... I went a little overboard i guess but heres what i came up with:
Programs used,
• Firefox - Free webbrowser from mozilla
• Sandboxie - http://www.sandboxie.com/ - An awesome program and one of my favourites for webbrowser security
• Tor - A free program used to tunnel connections securely through a distributed network of routers, i downloaded the Tor Vidalia Bundle from torproject.org. REMEMBER: Never enter personal data or passwords while using Tor. Tor is great for anonymity but cant be trusted when it comes to personal data, use it for webbrowsing only.
The great thing about firefox is the insane number of addons available. Following is a list of the addons ive added:
NoScript - (with web bugs blocked - options->advanced->untrusted->forbid webbugs.. remove all sites in whitelist too)
Adblock plus - Subscribed to easylist, fanboys list, easyprivacy/easylist, fanboys tracking/stats blocking.
RefControl - Simple to use addon used to forge http referer
BetterPrivacy - Used to delete flashcookies (Obviously sandboxie would take care of this too)
CSLite - Deny cookies globally
RequestPolicy - Blocks all cross-site requests and allows users to configure whitelists or temporary permissions.
Torbutton - Allows you to connect firefox through Tor at the click of a button (Remember to have tor running to use) - Often times this can slow your browsing down as you're being connected through the tor network.
User Agent Switcher - Allows you to cloak your webbrowser and OS in the user agent string. You could for instance choose to appear to be connecting from a mobile device, to be a google search bot, or just to be using an alternate browser and OS etc.
Ghostery - I almost didn't add this but chose to leave it in at the last moment, another addon that blocks webbugs and trackers aswell as informing you of them in real time.
There's likely to be some redundancy in there but a little crossover isnt always a bad thing. There is some configuration needed, a week or so of webbrowsing and you should have your main whitelists in place if you're so inclined. NoScript and RequestPolicy need the most attention when it comes to whitelists, learn to use those addons first.
Im aware that if you know how to properly configure privoxy then many of the addons aren't needed... but meh... I like the ease of use of firefox addons :)
