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Jan. 29, 2005 As my prior articles on this topic pointed out, the internet is a jungle these days and dark forces prowl like shadowy tigers. If you want to increase your security a bit more than my prior pieces allow, those of you running Windows should give some thought to changing your browser from Internet Explorer, as even the newer updated versions have vulnerabilities. You can get the fairly new Firefox browser from Mozilla free, and it does a much better job of keeping out popups, spyware, etc. In addition, there is a feature as yet little known and not used much. Go to the Mozilla/Firefox extension page, click on the security item at the left, and download the proxy switcher. You can then go to one of the proxy list pages (which can be accessed from the link on the download page), and from that you can collect yourself a list of dozens of proxy servers. Then by downloading this into your proxy switcher extension, you can set your Firefox browser to switch from one proxy server to another, which in effect makes you anonymous to any site you surf to. The IP address they see is that of the proxy server. Even better, you will be changing proxy servers at specified intervals. I use 30 seconds, but the setting is rather arbitrary. I haven't tried short time intervals, but suspect it might slow down surfing somewhat. Some of the proxy sites also have some restrictions, which may cause some transient errors or slowing of the web page loading. All this is actually quite easy, and the extension page (click on the author's home page link) has quite explicit directions with screen shots to show you what to do. There is a link to the proxy server pages where you can get lists of anonymous proxy servers. Select a list which is ONLY A ONE-COLUMN LIST OF IP ADDRESSES. The other lists which contain more information in several columns WILL NOT WORK. But for someone looking for more internet security, it may be a slight price to pay. And it's free! If this doesn't make you feel like a real covert internet operator, I don't know what will. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/central.html https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/showlist.php?application=firefox&version=1.0+&os=nt&category=Privacy%20and%20Security ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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