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New Web Browser Leaves No Footprints
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."
Safari has a 'Private Browsing' mode that creates no history, cookies, cache.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heatseek
;P
At least they are more upfront with their mission...
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'm not trying to be an OSS zealot here (honestly), but how does this do anything that Firefox doesn't do already? Preferences/Options, Privacy, Clear Private Data tool settings button. (The way to get there might be different in the Windows version, but you get the idea.) You can have it blow away history, forms, passwords, download history, cookies, cache data, and authenticated HTTP sessions automatically when you quit. And a few of those can be disabled outright from the start. And of course, Safari has a similar option too.
Well, it does require at least MSIE 5.5 in order to run.
So yes, this is only a new frontend.
Or they find out about when the unproven software ends up giving someone full access due to a dodgy exploit.
I suppose only the same will happen with other browsers though.
There's a Firefox plugin that does the same thing. Stealther claims to do the same thing, but what I don't know is how well it really covers its tracks. A forensic investigation into a hard drive can easily reveal browsing history, even if one cleans his or her history and deletes cookies, etc. I have heard of a browser that actually "shreds" this information (similar to Eraser but I can't seem to find any information on this browser.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Quick check with process explorer shows that it uses mshtml.dll as well as MFC.
"Coming soon" to linux indeed.
It's only 10% the size of Links because it uses the IE engine.
Smells like it's using the IE engine to render the pages.
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.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Given that the acid2 standards compliance test http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/ produces identical results in Browzar and IE (well, the version 6 I have installed anyway) I'd say it's a pretty good bet. It will be interesting to see how they go about producing a Mac or Linux version if they're just wrapping the IE renderer in some way.
Not the same: In Safari, you don't create a footprint of what you don't want recorded frst, just to later erase it together with the rest of your browsing history, it just doesn't write anything about your web-surfing onto the disk while in "private surfing" mode.
From the browzar FAQ
fifteen jugglers, five believers
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.
I already have a browser that leaves no footprints - Firefox Portable. Loaded on my 1GB Swiss Army knife the only thing it leaves on the host machine is a pluginreg.dat - which contains nothing about my internet use.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
1. Enter IE, go google.com, logoff if necessary, close IE
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
Relatively simple to answer. What they have created, in essence, is just an extension for IE. And an IE extension has a much larger likely userbase than an FF one.
Unfortunately.
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 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.
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Avant Browser (http://www.avantbrowser.com/). It sounds like it works exactly the same as this program (uses IE's renderer API and allows you to block images/flash and cleanup cookies/etc when you close the program). It is a little bit larger than this browzar claims to be, but I remember when it used to be under a MB (getting close to 2 MB now as they add features like tabbed browsing and mouse gestures).
Reminds me a of the time when I was 12 years old...
If you're on a mac, using safari, you just click on the 'Safari' menu item, then click on 'Reset Safari'. Viola, all of that stuff is erased for you. There are also a dozen utility programs that do this for you too.
Firefox already has an extension for this called "Distrust." When it's off, you browse normally, gathering cookies and the usual thang. When it's on, it enters "distrust mode" and takes note of all the cookies added, cache changes, etc. These changes are all deleted when distrust is turned off, or when Firefox exits.
I can't say for certain whether Opera has something like this, and I'm pretty certain IE doesn't, but in any case, what's the point of having yet another browser which touts a "feature" that's already available in a more popular browser?
It seems to me we've been getting a lot of these specialized browsers implemented lately (Flock being another), so I'm rather suspicious about the intent of the developers. (Though maybe it's just paranoia.)
It sure is based on IE. I ran sysinternal's filemon on browzar - browzar loads IE
12:26:09 PM BrowzarBlackWin:2804 OPEN C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE SUCCESS Options: Open Access: 00100080