But you probably did not notice the difference in search when you signed into Google and when you did not sign into Google.

If you sign into Google, the search is encrypted, i.e., the search is sent through https. But if you are not signed in, your search will be sent through plain HTTP, which means your search can be easily monitored/intercepted by others.

So, this can be a privacy concern for some users.

Of course, you can always get encrypted search through: https://encrypted.google.com. But for Chrome users, a lot of searches are sent directly through the Omnibox.

Encrypted search can protect your privacy. Actually, Firefox sent encrypted search since Firefox 14 in last July; Safari started to send encrypted search in last September.

Finally, Chrome 25 (now is in beta) starts … Read the rest

The post Encrypted search for all Chrome users in Chrome 25 appeared first on Safe Surfing.

It seems people suddenly start to concern about their privacy. Do Not Track becomes a popular word, although most people do not really understand it. Even the politicians want to express their interest in solving this issue.  The White House last week unveiled a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights”.

Mozilla reminded us that they invented Do Not Track in February 2011. If it was Apple, it was probably patented already, and now everyone would have had to pay for it except Safari users (they already paid when they purchased the fruity toy). According to the official page:

Keep My Opt-Outs is an extension for users who aren’t comfortable with personalization of the

… Read the rest

The post Keep My Opt-Outs: Chrome has the Do Not Track option for long time appeared first on Safe Surfing.

In our safe surfing guide series (part 4), we recommended you to dump IE and choose a better web browser, e.g., Chrome or Firefox, or SeaMonkey. Today, you get another reason to dump it forever!

On Feb. 20, Microsoft claimed that Google has been bypassing the user-defined privacy settings in Internet Explorer by using incorrect P3P identification terms:

Technically, Google utilizes a nuance in the P3P specification that has the effect of bypassing user preferences about cookies … By sending this text, Google bypasses the cookie protection and enables its third-party cookies to be allowed rather than blocked

Google’s response gave us a clearer picture.:

Microsoft uses a “self-declaration” protocol (known as “P3P”) dating from 2002 under which Microsoft asks websites to represent their privacy practices in machine-readable form. It is well known – including

… Read the rest

The post Another reason to dump Microsoft IE: Microsoft claims Google bypassed its browser privacy easily appeared first on Safe Surfing.

This is not true at all.

Firstly, the web proxy site still keeps a record of your activities. The logs usually can be used as court evidence. Basically, the server that hosts the web proxy sites, by default, will write some access info (usually, your IP, your OS, browser…) in the log file. It is up to the system administrator when to delete or how often to rotate (i.e., delete automatically after how many days) them.

Secondly, some client-side scripts (e.g,. JavaScript) may get your info. Most web proxy scripts (PHProxy, Glype) can re-write Java scripts to avoid information leakage, only to a certain extent. The deliberately-written scripts are hard to re-write. The only solution is to … Read the rest

The post How much can a web proxy protect your privacy? appeared first on Safe Surfing.