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Is there a web browser out there that is more suited for paranoid people? Why would you choose it/ What feature would your ideal paranoia browser have? For instance i would want one which Sends NO User-Agent information to the website.

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  • For some specific platform (Windows?) or for any?
    – Jonik
    Jan 29, 2010 at 21:40
  • 3
    Why do you want to send no user agent info? Faking the info tells equally as much about you and will probably make less trouble.
    – foraidt
    Jan 29, 2010 at 21:43
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    I'd assume sending NO info makes you unique, and therefore trackable.
    – Phoshi
    Jan 29, 2010 at 22:19
  • 1
    Your ISP is still going to know where the traffic is coming from, unless you take further steps. Depends on how paranoid you are.
    – Bratch
    Feb 1, 2010 at 15:32

7 Answers 7

9

Try The Paranoid Kit extension collection for Firefox.

Also Privoxy is a proxy server that strips any personal information from requests no matter what browser do you use. It is used in Tor by default, too.

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6

After following the above steps, it's worth popping over to http://panopticlick.eff.org/ . This page will tell you how unique your browser fingerprint is. (i.e. how easily it can be proved to be the browser you're using)

Yo give you an idea how scary this is, even in incognito mode, my browser fingerprint is totally identifiable from nearly 1/4 of a million other browsers.

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  • 2
    +1 really good tool. Didn't ever know that someone can track plugin list of my browser (the tool said it's unique!)
    – Catherine
    Jan 29, 2010 at 23:56
  • Changed to SSL: panopticlick.eff.org
    – JKAbrams
    Dec 18, 2013 at 7:23
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It is possible to disable/mask the the user agent in pretty much any browser (if that's your main concern).

Use a web proxy where applicable (e.g. Tor/Privoxy).

Other than that, run your web browser inside a sandbox (e.g. Sandboxie, preferably with a RAM disk as container) for ultimate privacy, this will leave NO browsing traces on your system when you turn it off. Not even the most sophisticated computer forensic tools will be able to recover any traces as nothing will be written to a physical disk.

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  • @Amro - this will also take care of the inconvenience having to delete the sandbox manually :)
    – Molly7244
    Feb 4, 2010 at 14:51
  • BTW you can configure the sandbox to automatically delete its content on exit. Yet this RAM disk idea is for the really paranoid of us who wants to even make the use of recovery tools impossible! I feel all evilish ;)
    – Amro
    Feb 17, 2010 at 23:31
  • @Amro - Yes, you can delete the content automatically, it's under 'Delete Invocation'. and using a RAM disk isn't necessarily about paranoia but convenience and, above all, about speed as the read/write access times of a RAM disk are about a gazillion times faster than your average platter HDD.
    – Molly7244
    Feb 18, 2010 at 0:04
1

I know that was not exactly the question, but if you're really paranoid about that, go get a Live-CD like Knoppix, Kanotix, DSL or the Ubuntu one. This will not even leave traces on the computer that there was an operating system. ;)

0

You can try JonDoFox.

JonDoFox is a profile for the Mozilla Firefox web browser particularly optimized for anonymous and secure web surfing.

Combined with JonDo it is very powerful and secure.

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The simple answer is that it depends what you are doing. The more reason you have to hide, the more reason other people have to find you.

As a general rule, Tor and the Tor browser are probably the best for protecting your privacy, but don't assume that makes you immune from the law. If you're doing strongly objectionable things on the Internet you'll find yourself at the wrong end of some billion-dollar US departments with UAVs.

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How about Chrome's Incognito mode?

Might not be quite paranoid enough for you though ;-)

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  • 1
    Chrome is the last browser you should consider for privacy!! Look for SRWare Iron instead..
    – Amro
    Feb 4, 2010 at 14:35
  • No point suggesting that to me, I'm obviously not that paranoid ;-) (And if I were, I certainly wouldn't be using this here internet thing as my tin foil hat has no effect here!)
    – Garry
    Feb 4, 2010 at 16:52
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    @Garry: it's not about tinfoil hats, it's about Chrome calling back home. Jun 11, 2013 at 1:59

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