A new, trackless search engine has recently arrived on the block -er pond.

The new critter is called duckduckgo.

Yes, really.  Duckduckgo.com.  Wierd, funny, (is this a joke, huh?)
And somewhat memorable, and evidently no joke.

She, or he (gender of duck yet to be determined) purports to respect your privacy by not remembering everything you do, as opposed to those neighborhood busybodies, Bing and Google, who love to gossip by passing on your search terms to sites that you visit.

Not only does she promise to not save your search history, she promises to not even save your IP address, nor pass on your search terms (in most circumstances), nor assign a ‘unique identifier’.

WHAT? A search engine that isn’t out to make money off your lack of direction in life, your need for speed, your thirst for knowledge, your seeking of truth, or at least the best price on the latest gizwangbam gadget?

And not only that, she will also encrypt your search by merely adding an “s” onto http. Whoa, doggies!  Er, Whoa duckies!

How about that, folks?

Give ‘er a spin!

https://duckduckgo.com

While you are at it, check out her privacy page for an enlightening discussion about search engine privacy, or rather, the lack of it.

http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html

How to craft a well protected browser:

Practically  speaking, anonymity is very difficult to achieve on the web, but with some small effort, you can increase your privacy significantly.

Here is the recipe:

• the latest version of the Firefox browser (if you can keep up with their fast-track version cycle!)
• Always make sure that Adobe Flash is updated to the latest version.
• Firefox plugins

1. Better Privacy
2. Ghostery
3. NoScript
4. Https-Everywhere
5. Adblock Plus

Then set the browser options to:

1. Set the cashe to a relative small size, say 10 MB.
2. Delete cashe on exit (temporary files)
3. Delete history on exit.
4. Delete cookies on exit. Note: also set Better Privacy to delete ‘super cookies’ (flash cookies) on exit.
5. Select the “do not track” option (under the privacy tab)
6. Use a password manager such as RoboForm

Don’t forget!  You are still not private or anonymous. So be nice.

Remember “Practice Safe Computing”

Recently, Startpage.com made encrypted search the default.  They now use SSL for all searches.  Previously it was optional.  This may be of interest to anyone who doesn’t care for having extensive online search profiles stored by Google or Bing or other search engines.  We recommend it.

Opera?  No

Chrome? No

Firefox? No

Safari?  No

Internet Explorer 9?  Yes

As per the following source article, Internet Explorer is by far the best browser at keeping Malware off our computer. (But you do need to listen to it)

In this competition, IE9 was effective at preventing 92% of malware infections.  IE8 blocked 90%.

The nearest competitor only blocked 13%.

Note: SmartScreen Filter must be ON.

(this is about stock, off-the-shelf browsers, not security enhanced browsers such as Dragon, or add-ons and security and privacy plugins, etc.)

Source

Smarphones are great devices, but their convenience brings significant privacy concerns.

Check out this Computerworld article for more information and some ways to help increase your privacy.

Startpage.com in now providing google search results without sending identifying information to google. And that is a good thing. For even more privacy, startpage.com is available using SSL encryption, by using HTTPS:

https://startpage.com

Startpage is one of the few search engines that does not record your every move; your every search and what you click on.

“Practice safe surfing”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has produced a small add-on for Firefox, called “HTTPS Everywhere BETA” that causes Firefox to favor the SSL encrypted version (HTTPS) of a number of popular web sites.   We have tested it and found it works very well for the limited number of sites it supports. But then again, not many sites give you the option of connecting via SSL.

Source:  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

This video may give you a good idea as to why updating is important.

It is incredibly important to keep *all* the software on your computer updated on a very regular basis.  Do not leave this to chance.  Do not rely on programs to update themselves. 

Do use tools like Secunia PSI.  Secunia PSI can help you keep a lot of these programs up to date.  We highly recommend this tool, found at: http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

 Do insure that you have the latest anti-virus software and  keep it updated with current definitions.

There is a list of software that *must* be updated on a regular basis (if installed):

• Sun Java Runtime
• Adobe Flash
• Adobe Reader
• Your computers operating system, be it XP, Vista, MAC OS, Linux or whatever.
• Your browser, be it IE, Firefox, Opera or whatever
• QuickTime
• Spybot Search and Destroy Immunization definitions
• Spyware Blaster
• Your antivirus software
• Your firewall softwares
• Your Security suite, it that is what you use
• CCleaner or whatever temp file and registry cleaner you may use
• Any other anti-spyware software you may use
• WordPress, or any server based blogging  or similar tools you may use

To see why it is  so very important to secure your wireless network with WPA security, as well as taking some other simple precautions, such as naming your network in a way that is not personally identifiable, check out this YouTube video:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A88XB7_Jz7s