New Web Browser Leaves No Footprints 388
eastbayted writes "InfoWorld reports a new web browser designed to protect users privacy is available for download. Called Browzar, it 'automatically deletes Internet caches, histories, cookies and auto-complete forms.' It also boasts a search engine, which the company will use to generate income. The 264KB application is the brainchild of Ajaz Ahmen, known for creating the U.K.'s first ISP Freeserve. The forthcoming version is for Windows only, but Mac and Linux versions will be available eventually."
Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:5, Funny)
Surfing for porn on the company's own hardware is a difficult problem to solve because you know that the machine's going to hang up on you right in the middle of some huge download and you're going to have to take that dead machine down to IT where they will come to know all about your little addiction.
With this software, you can be sure you're clean even when the PC crashes.
They selling stock?
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I suppose only the same will happen with other browsers though.
Re:Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, you mean like Internet Explorer?
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No, very much unlike Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer is proven to give anyone full access due to several very straight forward exploits.
Re:Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:5, Funny)
Use lynx via SSH (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know if it works trough the company firewall though .
Re:Best idea I've heard all decade (Score:5, Informative)
However, You have to take into account that all your internet traffic passes through IT-departments gateway. So you better check wich policy they got on non-workrelated internet traffic. Best thing you can do is set-up an encrypted tunnel [gotomyvnc.com] to some server outside your network (use HTTP-encapsulation if you can only use HTTP).
I fail to see the benefit of using a supposedly secure browser. Any reasonably competent IT guy will see right trough it.
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If you are listing the above situations and you go run a tool to reset the password, you should really make sure your resume is up to date as that is a huge fireable offense (in some situations possibly criminal). If you don't normally have access there is a reason for it.
Safari has similar capabilitites (Score:5, Informative)
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So just a browser which says it does it automatically perhaps know how to market on this issue,its not a very big deal now for other browsers too.
Re:Safari has similar capabilitites (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention, do this and you lose ALL your browsing history. What if you want to keep some of it?
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For the latter: Firefox has profiles; use them.
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'End Task' sends the application's window a WM_QUIT message and gives it a chance to exit gracefully before timing out and prompting you to kill the process.
'End Process' kills the process immediately, like sending a kill -9.
FYI, xkill only seems to be fast because it causes the X server to immediately delete the target window. The actual process that was creating the window may or may not exit in a timely fashion when it
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Re:and Opera too. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and Opera too. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Good points otherwise, though - this is nothing new, and not really worthy of attention. We already have an excellent Free Software browser. I'm satisfied enough with Firefox that I wouldn't really want to bother trying other browsers, just as I'm satisfied enough with Google that I wouldn't bo
Not-a-fact! (Score:5, Informative)
Freeserve was far from the UK's first ISP. There were hundreds of ISPs, including large players like Pipex, Demon, Compuserve and AOL in the UK, along with much smaller ones like Eclipse before Freeserve came along.
Freeserve was the first ISP not to charge a monthly fee, but not the first to exist.
Re:Not-a-fact! (Score:5, Informative)
"..Freeserve, the first U.K. Internet service provider (ISP) to offer free Internet access to customers in the late 1990s."
I dont know how that became..
"..Ajaz Ahmen, known for creating the U.K.'s first ISP Freeserve."
hats off to the
Re:Not-a-fact! (Score:4, Informative)
In this country, local rate (0845) calls are not free.
and if anybody wonders how that worked (Score:2)
Browser with more honest PR department (Score:5, Informative)
At least they are more upfront with their mission...
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Hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
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Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
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One is that it might reach users who haven't thought about these things before. Sure: that's preying on potential customers' ignorance but some of them might be interested in a solution which doesn't require them to fiddle with browser settings.
It could be useful if you're on someone else's machine - maybe even a Cybercafe or something like that. Gives a
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
If the text is to be believed, it does 1 thing firefox doesn't.
Fit on a 5.5" DSDD Floppy.
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Probably nothing. But it might do better and actually *not store* this information to disk at all, and mark the memory non-swappable. Anything else and the (parts of the) data in those caches and stores will end up stored
Knoppix? (Score:5, Interesting)
Regarding this "Browsar", does it delete all caches/cookies, or not save them at all? Because just deleting can be not secure enough unless you do it very carefully. Also, what about the swap? Is it deleted or avioded?
You had me until (Score:2)
Good for a laugh first thing in the morning. Thanks!
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Re:Knoppix? (Score:5, Informative)
From the browzar FAQ
Browzar is based on IE? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no indication on their web site that it is based on anything though.
http://www.browzar.com/ [browzar.com]
I found this one message on google groups (in french) which indicates it is based on Internet Explorer.
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/fr.comp.infosyst
Anyone know any better?
Re:Browzar is based on IE? (Score:5, Informative)
So yes, this is only a new frontend.
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In other words this browser is worse than fucking useless. It just embeds IE, tweaks what settings it can and then tries to clean up afterwards. If you want to do that, you can do it in Opera and in Firefox. I believe there are even builds of Firefox which run off a keychain and leave absolutely no tell tale clues they were ever there (e.g. cache files etc.).
Re:Browzar is based on IE? (Score:5, Informative)
"Coming soon" to linux indeed.
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They said, "coming eventually". "Coming soon" probably means "eventually" which probably means, "never". :-)
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Automatically Deletes. (Score:2)
If you made a browser from scratch you could just not implement those features...
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Personally, I'll stick with the off by one web browser [offbyone.com] for any local private browsing. It may not be a great web rendering browser, but it's totally contained with it's own rendering engine, will fit on a floppy disk, and everything is stored in RAM and is deleted once the browser closes.
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
But does it work well on a USB flash drive? From the description it seems like it might. Anyone have an idea?
Most browsers already give you options to allow you to not store most of this information already. Firefox has a key combo to (transparently, optionally) wipe out selected areas of this data. Someone mentioned an option for Safari. Opera probably has something too somewhere.
Two major limitations (Score:3, Interesting)
2) It sounds like it only keeps the local computer clean of history. Which I guess is good if you don't want your boyfriend to find out you like the whole Furbie sex scene. But when you're later divorcing him because he won't put on a chipmunk suit, and his attorney subpoenas Yahoo to get records of your search history, you're not protected. I think to be protected from THIS sort of thing the browser ought to default to using an anonymizer proxy.
Re:Two major limitations (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried to be clear about the reason in my post. The argument is this:
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Turning your question around, why do you closed-source advocates not like the idea of showing off your source code? Are you ashamed of it? Is it full of schoolboy errors? Perhaps you've been using ints as
Obligitary funny story about Google Autocomplete (Score:5, Funny)
A few years ago I was doing IT consultancy in London, and a client had a problem with her PC all acting funny.
I went along, it was the secretary/receptionist's PC so she moved over, and sat next to me watching what I was doing as I investigated.
I found a suspicious DLL beginning with 'S' running on the system, so I did what you would normally do, do a google search and see what it comes up with.
As soon as I typed the first 'S', up pops good old google autocomplete:
"STD clinic london"
I typed as fast as I could and hoped she didn't notice!
Turned out her PC had a virus too.
Jolyon
Re:Obligitary funny story about Google Autocomplet (Score:3, Funny)
Submit buttons not working? (Score:2)
Anyone else noticed this?
Privacy and a search engine? (Score:2)
Why do I have a feeling that you'll leave "footprints" on its search engine.
(And they sure need some way to create revenue since there's no reason to use their browser.)
Firefox plugin (Score:5, Informative)
Should we pursue this? (Score:2, Interesting)
I keep on seeing these stats about huge numbers of married guys who feel addicted to porn. That is, they know it's causing them relationship problems, but they feel they can't stop. And hiding their browsing history is a major modus operandi for them to continue their behavior.
Yes, I realize there's a possibility that these guys would find some other venu
Free to use it, free to NOT use it (Score:2)
I do firmly believe in the personal freedom to do as you choose as long as nobody gets hurt. Tools should exist. Knowledge should be available. Take them and use them as you see fit, and let your conscience (or whatever is used to make an informed decision) be the judge whether and when t
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Either way, except in the case of accidents, the responsibility is still with the person pulling the trigger. And that applies to most things.
Alcohol may be part of the cause of various problems, but it's not an excuse - you
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You need a special browser for that? You can't just tell IE, FF or Opera to clear out its cache, history, etc when you finish? You can't just configure FF to do it automatically?
You can't just create yourself a user account and not tell your spouse the password?
Besides which, they're clearly doing it now; I don't see that a new browser that makes it a little bit easier is going to change anything.
I'm asking wheth
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Regarding restricting myself, heck yes. Don't you want to avoid doing things that pointlessly hurt other people? If you're so self-centered as to not care about hurting other people, then I don't think we have enough common ground for this discussion to be fruitful. And if I know that some situations tempt me to be a real a**hole, then yes, I try to restrict myself to not be in those situations.
Regarding restricting other
protect my privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Autocompletes? (Score:2)
A simple front end for IE (Score:3, Interesting)
Been checking up ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
So-called "security" software without source code is worse than useless -- and would be outlawed if we had a sensible Minister for Information Technology. The information it's claiming to be hiding could be valuable, so there's a clear motive to lie about what it's doing -- and hiding the source code provides an obvious means. I, for one, wouldn't give it the opportunity.
I have set Firefox to ask me every time about cookies. As soon as I see a "__utma" or a "h2" cookie, I know at once the owners of that site have absolutely no concern for my privacy, and simply block all cookies from that site. Otherwise I usually accept cookies for the session only.
I also keep my day-to-day login password as secret as any of my root passwords, and always set up a brand new user account if anyone ever wants to use one of my computers for anything.
but I already have one... (Score:5, Informative)
Great! (Score:2)
Then again, in IE7 I can just go Tools -> Delete Browsing Hist
Given that it uses the IE engine . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Be nice to your friends... (Score:2)
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'What happens if Browzar crashes?' (Score:2, Insightful)
Each time you run Browzar it places a simple text file on your computer which contains a date and time stamp of the precise moment your Browzar session began. Normally this file is deleted automatically when you close Browzar, but in the event of a crash this file remains on the computer. All you need to do is run Browzar again immediately after the crash and Browzar will clean up anything left over from the crash by checking the time and date stamp and removi
privacy and closed source don't mix (Score:2, Insightful)
It's based on IE!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Crap!
The browser isn't usually the problem. (Score:2)
That said, it is a nice little exe to toss on the USB thumbdrive.
Mac version? (Score:2)
Session cookies (Score:2)
Remembering my email...?! (Score:2)
I pushed 'Run' and got a nice looking black browser with their own search-engine.
But I usually use Google, so I typed in 'www.google.com'. And the first thing I notice in the top corner:
'myemail@google.com | Personal Homepage | etc'
Google sees that I'm surfing to their website..! And they can't be locating me by my IP because I'm behind a firewall inside my company's network. (right?) So it probably just uses I
Make a firefox profile, get the same benefit... (Score:2)
Isn't that the same?
Re:It sounded good until... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is great that privacy is protected provided you dont mind:
server logs
ISP logs
upstream proxy logs/cache
dns cache
any identifiable information you give out to websites
Nice idea for the 'hide-it-from-your-wife' crowd, but other than that not too much use for this, and not really anything that is not provided by extensions for existing browsers already.
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Depending on how well it works, we're talking about a browser 10% the size of even links.
Could be an advantage there, even if the privacy claims are bunk.
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Re:It sounded good until... (Score:5, Informative)
There's no way you could pack a full graphical browser into 264K on a windows box.
And, without graphics, a porn browser is hardly useful.
Re:It sounded good until... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it requires IE 5.5 or above, I expect it uses IE for most functions. Not bad in itself, but it will probably be vulnerable to all the exploits IE is, and users being unaware of that, especially visiting the seamier websites infested with drive-by installers, may be seriously screwed. Nevertheless, if you have to use a PC temporarily and only IE is installed, it would be better than just trying to clean up IE.
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Firefox and Safari doesn't need this add-on, as they have by default options in their configuration to delete all sensitive information on program-exit.
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Actually Freeserve hasn't been heard of since 2004 (several years after the
Far from dying in the
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Strange privacy protection (Score:5, Informative)
2. open browzar, go google.com, autheticate with your gmail account
3. close browzer
4. open IE, go google.com.... still authenticated!!!
perhaps it needs some more debugging.
hth
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;) Hint: the app uses the IE rendering engine, just like konqueror above uses KHTML. It's easy to be small if all your work is being done by a shared object file or it's local equivalent.
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It requires IE to be installed. Basically, it's a skin.
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It requires MSIE 5.5+, I have a pretty good idea what Acid will report.
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Unfortunately.
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But I imagine the userbase who'd download and install browser plug-ins is overlapping quite well with those who'd download and install another browser.
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