Privacy Software Gets Some Teeth

Freedom

Zero-Knowledge Systems

Recommended for: Advanced users who want the best protection available and aren't afraid to tweak obscure settings.

Price: Free for a 30-day trial period; $50 per year.

Download: 5MB download required.

The power user's privacy tool, Zero-Knowledge's Freedom allows Internet users to mask their identities while doing virtually anything online. But unlike Anonymizer and Privada's services, which simply proxy the Web pages users request, Freedom protects your privacy more thoroughly by routing all Internet traffic through a network of several machines before it emerges thoroughly "cleansed" at the other end.

Freedom also allows you to create and maintain a persistent online identity, which Zero-Knowledge calls a nym (taken from the root of anonymous). Using one or more nyms, Web surfers can visit any site, send e-mail, post to newsgroups, and even use IRC without fear that their real IP addresses or e-mail accounts will be exposed. The application also ties directly into any POP3 e-mail program (such as Eudora and Outlook) to protect the contents of e-mail messages: It encrypts the messages as they travel through the Freedom network and replaces your return address with an address in the form of nym@freedom.net, which routes back to your real in-box.

Freedom's service requires you to register your nym and then activate it with a token (the installer comes with three evaluation tokens that allow you to create and use up to three nyms on the service free for 30 days). After the evaluation period, you must buy five additional full tokens, which are valid for a year, for $50.

Zero-Knowledge takes great pains to make Freedom very user friendly. The Freedom application, which manages your nyms and your Internet connections through the Freedom network, requires a minimum of user input. Most users with even beginner-level Internet skills should be able to get Freedom up and running after a few minutes. The only ease-of-use glitch: Freedom's built-in firewall software required me to track down fairly obscure "port numbers" in order to use other Internet applications while Freedom was connected to the network.

Working the Web Without Fear

No matter which application you choose, if you're concerned about being tracked online, you should be using some sort of Web privacy software. If ease of use is your primary concern, Anonymizer and PrivadaControl both offer a simple, easy-to-understand interface. If you're an advanced user who enjoys IRC and the like, then you may need a more sophisticated tool like Freedom.

Associate Editor Andrew Brandt covers Internet security, privacy, and consumer issues for PC World.