First of all, you need to connect through a proxy.

Just like http://www.megaproxy.com and http://www.anonymizer.com there are thousands of free proxies which allow you connect anonymously and securely to the website of your choosing.

Go to http://proxysite.com/ and choose a proxy computer in the country of your choice. There are anonymous proxies, and transparent proxies, and you want to choose an anonymous proxy that totally masks your IP from the website (i.e. computer) which you connect to.

Once you've chosen your proxy, open Internet Explorer 5.5 and go to Tools/Internet Options/Connections

If you have cable modem or broadband connection click on "LAN Settings," check "Use a proxy server" and enter the proxy IP number, and port in the boxes.

If you're on a dialup connection go to Tools/Internet Options/Connections

In the white "Dial-up settings" box, highlight the connection you use.

Click on "Settings." Check "Use a proxy server" and enter the proxy IP number, and port in the boxes.

Click "Okay."

Once you have your proxy, go to http://www.all-nettools.com/pr.htm to check if you are really anonymous.

Connecting to a proxy server is just like connecting to a website.

All the internet is, is computers, and a webserver which serves websites, is just another computer. When you connect to the website Yahoo for example, you are immediately proxied through several other computers which handle Yahoo's web traffic. The "web address" is just a mask for a computer's IP number. For instance http://www.all-nettools.com is just a domain name for the computer at IP address http://216.92.207.177. Connect to http://216.92.207.177 and you will see that it is exactly the same website.

To clear your computer of your past surfing content,

Go to Tools/Internet Options/General/

Clear History Delete Files Delete Files-Delete Offline Content Then go to the tab "Content" AutoComplete - Clear Forms, Clear Passwords.

To make sure the websites aren't tracking you, delete all your cookies

Go to Windows Explorer

C:/Windows/Cookies Edit/"Select All" or Cntrl+A Delete

C:/Windows/Temporary Internet Files/ Delete

C:/Windows/Temp/Cookies Delete

To turn off your cookies so that you don't have to delete them as often, in Internet Explorer 5.5 go to Tools/Internet Options/Security "Custom Level," scroll down until you see "Allow cookies that are stored on your computer," select Disable, and click Okay.

If anyone knows anything else to clear, please let me know. Remember, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) could still be watching you, but if you connect through a proxy they would have packet sniff to see what you're looking at. Yet if you post something through a proxy you can still be traced if the proxy computer you connect through keeps logs.

In my opinion, the internet should be 100% anonymous in any case. No one has any authority to look at any of your web communications without a court order, and countries have no authority to regulate communications between people, on the net or otherwise.

It's also a good idea to have a good firewall. Zone Alarm is one of the best, you can download for free at http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

For more information on the internet and to test the safety of your computer, go to http://www.grc.com or http://www.privacy.net.

It's also a good idea to change your network connections so that your TCP/IP protocol is not bound to the Client for Microsoft Networks.

You can learn how to do this at http://www.grc.com. This makes it harder for people to hack in over Netbios port 139 (yet if you have a good firewall, they won't be able to in any case).

For more information on your internet connection, the winipcfg and netstat commands are useful. These can be accessed from the START/Run box or from DOS if you're on a Win 98 or older operating system.

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