From a security and privacy point of view, we can think of a web request and its response as consisting of three major components: the information on the user (e.g. IP address, browser type, address of previous page visited, ...) who makes the request, the web address (URL) of the web page, and the content of the web page. In both the IDzap free anonymous browsing service and the IDsecure service, the page requests are made through the IDzap server, and hence the destination web site does not know who actually makes the page request.

In most practical situations, the user connects through an ISP (or your company firewall) before reaching the IDzap servers. The situation is as shown in the Figure. That is, all the traffic that the user generates goes through the ISP or the company firewall. Hence, it is entirely possible that the ISP, firwewall admin person, or any eavesdropper who listens to the signal in the wire, can find out about all the activities of the web user.

In light of these problems, our IDzap engineers developed the IDsecure service with the security features to fully protect the privacy of the web surfers. The IDsecure service offers the following security features:

• Blocks the user information from reaching the destination web site,
• Secures the channel between the user and the IDzap server,
• Uses advanced encryption technology to encrypt the URL, (hence the address information is hidden from both the ISP, firewall admin, and any eavesdropper),
• Uses SSL connections to protect the content of the web pages in transit,
• Supports retrieval of secure (SSL) pages from destination web sites,
• Provides a mechanism for the user to configure security parameters including
  • Blocks cookies
  • Blocks javascript
  • Encrypt history folder
  • Blocks transmission of "Referer" variable (this variable tells the destination web site the address of the previous web page visited)
  • Blocks transmission of browser type

The IDsecure service is priced at $15 per quarter (3 months) or $50 per year. To enjoy all the IDsecure advantages, please click here to subscribe.