When you surf online, you leave a fingerprint. When using a virtual machine, your own surf tracks can be partially blurred. This makes it more difficult to create usage and movement profiles or to determine your identity.
Enlarge
Virtual PCs for secure online banking, anonymous surfing, software tests and much more
© CC7 / Shutterstock.com
You leave a variety of traces behind when you surf: For example, servers and web services store information about you in cookies and super-cookies. The more you use a provider’s service, the more accurate their picture of you will be. And the better the providers are networked with one another, the more information is available to them for creating surfing profiles.
Example Amazon: The web giant suggests articles to you – based on previous searches. Your buying behavior or your product research is always recorded and analyzed. In this way, you receive purchase suggestions in the form of advertising banners for products that you have previously searched for on another page.
Even with dynamic pricing, the data collection frenzy of web services can be detrimental for you. In this way, the product price adapts to demand. This can end up paying you a higher price.
Data slinging IP address
Enlarge
Commercial VPN providers Cyberghost not only allow the use of an encrypted VPN connection, but with a subscription they also allow you to bypass Geo-IP blocks.
The biggest betrayers are your browser and your IP address. It is mentioned automatically when you surf the web so that the server with the website knows where to send its data. This is necessary, but anyone can at least find out your approximate location from the IP address. We are therefore introducing you to various ways in which you can navigate the Internet as anonymously as possible.
The evaluation of your IP address is only one of several characteristics that can be used to track you on the Internet. However, your IP is the most important commonality that site owners and advertisers can access. Therefore, protecting the IP address when improving your privacy requires special attention. A virtual machine is particularly useful here.
The VM helps you to surf the net simply by invisibility, whenever you want to go undetected as possible – for example when shopping online, searching for information or calling up private content. You usually do not need the protective shield for everyday page views such as visiting news sites, streaming music and films, or using webmail. You can do these activities without the VM on your host PC.
Disguise online data traffic of the VM with a VPN
Enlarge
When it comes to online anonymity while surfing, the Tor network is still a good choice. It is not for nothing that its use is restricted or even prohibited in countries such as Egypt, China and Turkey.
A tried and tested means of being on the Internet halfway undetected is through a VPN tunnel (Virtual Private Network). In this case, the data packets are not sent directly from your virtual machine to the target server, but are instead routed via a VPN server. The advantage is that it is not your IP address but that of the VPN server that is saved in the log files of the servers you visit. In addition, the data sent over a VPN tunnel is also encrypted, which makes it difficult for third parties to eavesdrop on it. To go online with a cloak of invisibility, all you have to do is install the software provided by the provider in the VM. The VPN services from Hidemyass, Cyberghost and Vyprvpn are recommended.
Commercial VPN providers usually allow not only the obfuscation of the IP, but also the circumvention of geo-IP blocks. Such measures are intended to prevent users from certain countries from using offers – mostly video streaming – that are either not available in their countries or are only available to a limited extent. However, if you go online with your IP address, which identifies you as a user from Germany, via a VPN server with a US IP address, you will be considered an American for the target server.
Disadvantage:
Using a good VPN service costs money. In addition, you have to be sure that the provider of the service will not abuse your trust and possibly pass on data.
More privacy while surfing
Enlarge
With Mozilla VPN, the virtual private network is the developer of Firefox. It is designed to protect privacy while surfing, working, streaming and gaming. It costs from 4.99 euros per month with an annual subscription.
If the IP address of the PC is changed and obfuscated, you are not only cheating the advertising industry. Instead of one visitor calling up ten pages, you appear in the server’s log files as ten visitors, each calling up one page. The Tor network disguises the actual IP address through intermediary proxy servers. The packages no longer take the shortest route from you to their destination, but go via intermediate stations. The Tor node you are connected to knows your IP address, the second and third no longer – and certainly not the destination server. The Tor network is structured in such a way that each intermediate station only knows the IP address of its predecessor. This makes it difficult to trace a parcel back to the sender.
Tor also has disadvantages:
Depending on the load, the surfing speed is significantly slower. Even an overloaded intermediate station can slow you down. And as with all networks, the same applies here that it can only be so secure as long as it is not compromised. After all: If monitoring agencies manage to monitor a Tor node, it is not possible to de-anonymize a user.
Disguise the IP address
Jondo, which was developed in Germany, has chosen a technically comparable approach to the Tor network. The data packets are also forwarded here via a cascade of nodes, with the recipient’s IP address also being encrypted. In order to protect the network from the risk of being spied on by dubious participants, Jondo relies on certified participants in its own network. You can use the Jondo browser free of charge, but then you have to live with a limited speed of 100 to 200 kbit / s. If you want more speed, you need the paid premium package. The cheapest flat rate offer for 8.33 euros per month is limited to two GB of data volume. ‘
See also
: Real private mode for the browser – this is how it works
Tips for online banking with VirtualBox
