Some may raise some eyebrows when “anonymous surfing” is brought up. Why remain anonymous unless you’ve got something to hide? Well, maybe not the same stuff they are thinking of, but I sure wouldn’t want to propagate my bank account information to every Google user!

The Internet is a great and very helpful place, but we don’t have to sacrifice our right to privacy when using it. Some ISPs store all of your information for up to 2 years! Some government agencies in the UK store all of the information in a large database forever.

Maybe having an ISP know what you are doing is not a big deal, but it is the principle of the matter. Imagine if someone hacked the server; all information, every website, password, social security number ever entered in the last two years would be at their fingertips! A bit scary when it is laid out before you.

American’s military is the glue that holds the nation together. National security is on every U.S. citizens’ mind, and this is only magnified in these turbulent times. These freedom fighters would give everything to help their country, and do so every day.

Though they may seem almost inhuman with their selflessness, these are just ordinary people. They love family, freedom, and happiness just as much as anyone else. While traveling or being stationed internationally, some military members can get homesick. This is perfectly normal, and happens to some when leaving on a leisurely vacation. Imagine the anguish of having to leave your country, and go off to some faraway land to fight!

Watching some familiar American T.V. is a great way to stay in touch with old Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, a man can‘t exist on “I Love Lucy” alone, and must supplement their viewing diet.

Internet T.V. to the rescue! Imagine the joy of a lonely soldier when he or she could access an entire cultural reservoir of familiarity. They could just catch up on the affairs back home, or maybe just see who J-Lo is marrying this week. Alas, it was too good to be true.

If you want to surf securely and remain anonymous on the Internet, a private proxy is the best way to do so. There are a couple important things to keep in mind about proxies though. Having a better understanding of Internet security in general will better prepare you to select the right proxy.

First of all, there are free proxies. “Free” is a bit of a subjective term here. In the eyes of most, “free” means no money needs to be shelled out. This is true of a free proxy. Keep in mind though, that you pay in attention. There are ads all over sites, and the proxy makes money by you clicking on them.

Web proxies are the most common type of proxy on the Internet. They cloak your IP address and allow you to remain anonymous on the web. They can also bypass firewalls and other virtual blockades by masking the sites you are visiting, and just having it appear that you are visiting their site.

The Internet is probably the quintessential reason this day and age is called “the information society”. Everything is right at our fingertips, and is so easy to access. Instead of spending hours researching in a library for your research paper, you could simply do a Google search and find endless pages of information. Instead of drudging between houses during a yard sale, one can head to Ebay and find bargains and deals galore.

Infatuated with this great new invention, no one stopped to worry about the dangers it could present. Internet crime began to rise. People panicked, and with only rudimentary knowledge, didn’t know how to protect themselves. Some just gave in, and assume you had to be a genius to stay safe and anonymous on while surfing the web.

Where there is strife, there is demand for some benefactor to come along and rescue the oppressed. This hero turned out to be something intangible, but nonetheless, effective.

When George Orwell penned his novel 1984, he predicted that personal privacy and freedoms would be idyllic notions of the past. Some thought the story was just a outrageous tale spun to entertain the paranoid of his era, but some of its ideas are being manifested; just about 25 years later.

In the UK, there are government CC cameras around seemingly every corner, and here in the U.S., we have our beloved Patriot Act. These acts seem to keep chipping away at our rights: unreasonable search and seizures are not permitted.

Some people do not care about this freedom; “why is it a problem if you’ve got nothing to hide?” That’s not the point: these freedoms are inherited upon birth and are now being infringed at a rapid rate. States are beginning to plan actions that will effectively ban anonymous proxy servers, which allow you to remain anonymous online.

For months, Microsoft and bloggers have been discussing the added privacy features Internet Explorer 8 offers to its consumers.  In many ways, these changes are similar to Mozilla, Safari and other browsers have offered to the net surfers for a time.  IE8 centered its attention around the security and ease of use to users.  Some of the added features include InPrivate Browsing, Delete Browsing History, InPrivate Blocking, and InPrivate Subscriptions.  Other areas to include improvements in RSS, cascading style sheets, and AJAX (the information exchange).  Simply stated, IE8 is promising a safer environment for the surfer.

InPrivate Browsing puts you in control.  You have the option to allow Internet Explorer to save your browsing history, cookies and other private data exchanged on the net.  By having the ability to Delete Browsing History, you are able to manage whether or not websites that you have visited are saved.  While saving your website history may appear to be an added convenience for later use, this is not exactly a safe way to operate from a privacy perspective.

InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscriptions rely upon each other.  InPrivate Blocking advises you about any potentially harmful outside source that is in a position to view your browsing history.  Once the information has been relayed to you, you are given an opportunity to block the outside source.  This feature is Internet Explorer’s version of Privacy Mode, commonly referred to as “porn” mode.  InPrivate Subscriptions are a list of websites that you have created and named safe or unsafe.  If there is a site that you question security, you have the option of adding it to the blocked list.

The Internet can be compared to the old Wild West in some cases. You have criminals out in the digital world lying in wait for you.  Not Dirty Dans and Phillip McGees with guns ablazing, but worse.  Every time you open your browser you run a gauntlet of invisible cyber criminals longing to rob you of your identity, as well as treacherous ISPs and lurking marketing companies tracking, collecting and logging your IP address, following you like digital bloodhounds as you surf.  Many savvy surfers know one of the best ways to protect their Internet privacy and personal information is to use a proxy server.  Now, proxy servers can be located on the Internet with a simple search, but the question of the day is: Which is better? Web-based proxies or Anonymous surfing software?

Web-Based Proxy Servers
These web-based anonymizers are easy to use and only require you to have an Internet connection and enter a URL.  Give it a click and your IP address is replaced with theirs.  This can get you into a blocked website, like Myspace, but that is the main purpose of the online anonymous browser.  It’s not safe to send personal information over these servers because there is no guarantee that the information is encrypted, and if not, it can be accessed by some less than scrupulous person.  Also you cannot use web-based proxies to access banking sites or any other online location that uses either Secure Shell or Secure Socket Layer.

“Elite proxy” gets many keyword hits every day on a multitude of internet search engines. What are these exactly and why are they such a hot topic?

An elite proxy is just a stronger, more secure version of a normal anonymous proxy. A standard anonymous proxy hides the user’s IP address from the site, but the site can still tell that it is not the proxy requesting the information, and that someone is behind the communication. While this is still more secure than completely unprotected surfing, there is still a possibility for your identity to become known and your anonymity compromised.

An elite proxy goes one step further than a standard anonymous proxy. They actually make it seem as though only they are trying to access the information. Therefore, you are completely anonymous. In a normal anonymous proxy, the site knows there is someone else requesting the information, but not their identity. With an elite proxy server, the site has no idea there is someone else pulling the strings backstage.

The U.S. Military is the heart and soul of America. These are people who would give their lives for freedom, and to protect rights of Americans they don’t even know.

Even with this larger than life persona, these soldiers are just average people. They value family, happiness, and fun just as much as everybody else. When they signed up for duty, it was with the knowledge that they might have to leave their home for a long period of time. This is just part of the duty, but it doesn’t take away from the ache going away from their home and country will cause.

While traveling or being stationed internationally, some military members get homesick. If you are in a different country for an extended period of time, loneliness can easily dominate your trip. If soldiers begin to find themselves forgetting the smell of an old fashioned barbeque, or the pleasure of hanging out with friends and family, then maybe watching some good old American television is a great way to restore their morale.

Unfortunately re-runs of “The Honeymooners” get old quickly and can lead to a strange affinity for communism. Only kidding, but it can get boring.

Along came internet TV, a godsend to the nomads of the globe. Imagine a soldier’s joy when they get a chance to connect back to their culture, and feel at one with the U.S. again. They could catch up on affairs overseas, whether it is watching the stock market, or just to see what antics Britney Spears has been up to lately.

The internet is not the club it used to be. There are many more people using it, and some with bad intentions. It is more important than ever to be guarded online, and luckily, you don’t have to have a doctorate in Computer Sciences to do so.

One must always be wary of their ISP. The ISP has a meticulous log of all internet activity done while under them and every website has a log of every IP that visits them. By using an anonymous proxy, your ISP won’t have a log of sites you’ve visited because it won’t have been under them, and the website will log the proxy’s IP, and not yours when you visit.