Anonymous Web Surfing - Why
And How It's Done

No wonder anonymous web surfing capabilities exist...

Everything we do online leaves traces. If you read someone's web pages the site owner can check their traffic records and find out where you are, what your IP address is, and what system you are using to go online. On top of all of that the site owner can also find out what page you came from before you clicked onto their site, what page you went to as you left their site and even what search terms you used to find the site. Cookies on your computer allow more information to be gathered that tells others about your surfing habits.

There definitely was a need foranonymous web surfing capabilities because...

Overall, the information that is left online when you're browing the internet gives a fairly accurate view of your online activities and practices to anyone who is interested in looking it up. This means that you have no privacy, you can be watched by anyone online. You wouldn't want just anybody to know where you shop, what games you play, what books and magazines you read, and other information that could only be gathered by following you around and watching you 24/7 but this is the information you leave behind when you aren't surfing the internet anonymously.

There are times you may not want others to know what you are looking at. If you were abused as a child you may not want people to know who you are while you joined in conversations in a support group for abused children. That is one of many reasons why many people prefer to keep their surfing anonymous.

By using anonymous proxy servers you can improve your privacy online. Using an anonymous proxy servers you can hide your IP address from everyone. You will be able to go into chat rooms and other websites without being identified. This can stop internet marketers from finding out who you are, since your IP address is who you are, and what your surfing patterns are. Internet marketers can use that information to send you junk emails, or spam. Since the information in some cookies will show your email address and your surfing patterns that coupled with your IP address giving your location can be a marketer's dream and your nightmare.

Proxy servers will keep your IP address from being seen by others online, if you want the other information hidden you need to couple proxy servers with privacy software . There are many services to choose from, some are free while others are paid. Services such as Tor can distribute your traffic across several networks making it difficult for anyone to make a traffic analysis that could identify you.

This type of system uses encrypted links between several nodes to cover the path that your data takes while it travels online. With the path being encrypted the data can't be read so nobody can get the information about what sites you are hooking up to. If these paths aren't encrypted nobody can see who it is going to these sites but they can see where you are going.

If you combine proxy servers, privacy software, and encryption your web traffic will be anonymous. DNS leaks can happen. While no service has been proven 100% secure to date making your surfing anonymous by using proxy servers and privacy software does increase your privacy quite a bit. Unless you are a government system or you are attempting to do something terribly illegal your internet privacy is pretty safe with the anonymous surfing services available currently.