The growth in spam and Internet related crime has created a demand for products that allow you to surf securely without the worry of being hacked or targeted with unwanted mail. GhostSurf is a powerful application for blocking and removing spyware, blocking hackers and preventing annoying ad pop-ups. It can also be used to delete unwanted files from your computer, and to add files securely to a Personal Data Vault, but there's no built-in anti-virus or spam tools. Nevertheless, it's excellent value for money overall.

Pros: Provides an anonymous, encrypted Internet connection
Cons: No anti-virus tools; application windows can't be resized


Any discerning computer users knows that when you connect to the Internet, you are potentially exposing data on your computer and making your surfing habits available to hackers. If you don't take steps to protect your privacy online, you'll soon find that your system will become bombarded by advertisements and littered with spyware/adware.

The increasing numbers of individuals and companies using the Internet on a daily basis for online banking, shopping, booking insurance and holidays, e-mail and e-commerce has led to a prevalence of personal data being freely available online. This personal information, if unprotected, can then be accessed and used for many purposes including spam e-mail and illegitimate reasons, such as fraud.

GhostSurf 2005 Platinum helps to keep your personal information safe while you browse the Internet, thus helping to reduce the risk of being hacked or targeted with unwanted e-mail. It does this by scrambling your IP address. The software can also be used to remove browser history, delete cookies and spyware, and remove ad pop-ups (only available with Platinum version). Additionally, its 'Vault' locks away data in a password-protected folder to keep files and folders from prying eyes.

GhostSurf 2005 Platinum, like many other security programs, consists of a series of utilities accessed from a central interface. From here you can remove personally-identifying information from Web requests, keeping web site operators and advertisers from tracking you online, opt to send your data through Tenebril's anonymous hubs to hide your IP address and block Internet traces back to you, as well as encrypt all the Web data to and from your computer, preventing everyone (from your network administrator to your ISP) from seeing what you're doing.

There is also the option to block in-page and pop-up advertisements, scan and disable software that could be surreptitiously spying on you (spyware), delete unwanted files and traces of your Web browsing, as well as store personal data and passwords in a special encrypted vault. A single click on any of the icons on the home page launches the respective application. Unfortunately, each application loads a new, non resizable window.

The main part of the program is the Privacy Control Center that lets you choose what data will be allowed to reach the Internet, and what data will not. The highest level of privacy also encrypts all your data, so agencies, hackers or your ISP cannot watch your connection to see what sites you are visiting. Privacy levels are set by moving a slider. The lowest level, Normal, sends data directly to the Internet without modifying, rerouting or encrypting it. The highest level, Secure, removes personal information, reroutes your data, and encrypts it.

You can also exclude certain Web sites from the privacy level, thereby granting a particular site that requires personal information, like an online banking site or a Web-based e-mail site, access to your information even though the general privacy level prevents it. GhostSurf comes with a number of sites already in the 'special sites' list (popular sites which require personal information, but only for legitimate purposes), although you can modify the pre-existing special sites at a later date if you want to completely restrict the transfer of personal information.

The Privacy Control Center also provides some basic feedback, such as the number of blocked cookies, sent invisible requests, sent secure requests, speed-cached requests, pop-up ads blocked, as well as in-page ads blocked. Unfortunately, there are no reporting tools and no way to create and analyse log files.

GhostSurf also comes with an instant messenger (IM) add-on pre-installed, so all your instant messaging (AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ) will be anonymised automatically. Similar to Web site, you can control how GhostSurf anonymises your IM data using the 'special sites' list. By default, GhostSurf lets IM data go directly to the Internet. To change this, you can change the privacy level for the IM servers. The list below shows which entries you'll need to change for each IM service.

TracksCleaner is a handy tool for erasing your Web history, cache, clipboard, cookies and other files from your computer. When you first run TracksCleaner, it searches your computer for installed programs and fills its 'Wipe Now' list with all the plug-ins that apply to your particular software. You can also manually add or remove plug-ins and folder from this page.

If you want to temporarily change which elements are cleared, you can use the check boxes, so only those elements that are checked will be cleaned when you click the 'Go' button. Once TracksCleaner has finished removing files from your computer, it generates a simple report. You can also setup TracksCleaner to notify you by e-mail whenever a wipe completes, and you can also choose whether to be notified before a type of file is erased or when an error occurs.

The last key feature of the software if the Personal Data Vault (PDV), which acts as a safe-deposit box for your confidential files. A password-protected PDV also provides relatively basic backup features (removable drives supported), just for additional security. However, it's worth noting that if you loose your password, there is no way to access your vault or any of the data stored therein. The neat thing about PDV is that you can add files to your vault simply by dragging them from your desktop or Windows Explorer. The files you drag will be securely removed from their original locations so only the secure copy will exist, thus making the process a whole lot easier.

Links:
GhostSurf 2005 Web site

BIOS, Sep 07, 04 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Security