Privacy protection tool - computer magazine hardware soft

Protection can also be toggled on an off with a single click. The paid-for product, Hotspot Elite , only costs a few dollars or pounds a month, but it's worth trying the free edition first before opening your wallet. The premium version's additional features, including ad-free browsing and dedicated customer support, make it a tempting proposition. For more information, read our full Hotspot Shield review. Norton Deluxe offers an even richer and more feature-packed internet security suite than just providing a firewall.

While it provides for antivirus and standard anti-malware protections like the above internet security suites it dares to go further. Additional features in the Norton Deluxe edition includes a secure VPN, parent controls, a password manager, and online cloud backup.

There's also a feature for dark web monitoring so you can be alerted if any of your details appear for sale on the Dark Web. This all comes at a more expensive price than the other internet security suites featured here, but the additional features and peace of mind are likely to be worth it for some people. Beyond the deluxe edition, you can upgrade to the Lifelock Select version which provides additional identity protection and credit rating monitoring as well as insurance provision in the event that your personal information is misused.

Firewall, real-time malware detection, speedy cloud-based scanning, URL filtering to block malicious websites: Panda Dome Essential antivirus has all the essentials — not to mention, the goodies — you'd expect from the best antivirus software.

And, that's just the beginning. The interface will be a little bit decisive, too. With so many weird and wonderful features included, Panda Dome does a very capable job of making sure that they can all be accessed and you can go as in-depth as you need. However, on the other hand, this might put off users who just want a quiet, simple antivirus package. One undoubted advantage here is the price - Panda Dome Essential is one of the best value programs out there.

And, you even have the option of paying a little more and upgrading to cover an unlimited number of laptops, phones, tablets and desktops with a single subscription. Tor Browser is probably the best-known anonymous browsing tool out there, and it is described as a 'censorship circumvention tool'. Tor Browser has a vast following in the online privacy and security communities. It works by bouncing your communication through numerous encrypted nodes on the internet, making it impossible to determine your location or other identifying information.

Tor Browser employs complex technology, but is refreshingly accessible. It's based on the same code as Firefox, and guides you through the process of getting online one step at a time. It uses different connection methods depending on what you're trying to achieve, but there's no need to understand the details because it's all taken care of for you.

This combination of effective protection and ease of use makes Tor Browser the best free privacy software you can download today. If you'd like to find out more, read our full Tor Browser review. The free version of TunnelBear gives you up to MB of data each month, but if this isn't enough, unlimited data is available for a subscription. Alternatively, you can pay around twice that to use on a month-by-month basis. Whether you go premium or stick with the free version, you can share a single account between up to five phones, tablets, Windows PCs or Macs.

Configuration is incredibly simple, and TunnelBear's free privacy software can be used with any browser. It's probably the most accessible VPN tool there is, and is just about impossible not to recommend. To find out more, check out our full TunnelBear review. Like all free web proxies, VPNBook keeps web logs, which it can use to report illegal activity, but these are deleted automatically after a week. It is a tremendously powerful tool, but you'll need to invest a little time and effort to get it up and running.

Privoxy can be used in conjunction with just about any web browser, which is a big bonus; simply set the browser to run its traffic through the tool. However, one of Privoxy's key features could also be a drawback for new users: it gives you very granular control over privacy settings, and configuring them is very much a manual process.

There's a helpful quick start guide available, but it has the potential to be off-putting. That said, if you're happy to persevere, this free privacy software lets you set up advanced filters that will not only ensure you remain anonymous online, but also protect you against unwanted ads. It also inoculates your machine against getting infected in the first place.

Every PC needs a good firewall, software that blocks applications on the computer from making unsafe outbound connections. Comodo Firewall is a very good choice that blocks Trojan horses, stymies hackers attempting to take control of your PC, and wards off other threats. Note that using it takes a bit of work, since you have to let it know which programs are safe and should be allowed to have outbound connections. But setting that up is a small annoyance in light of the protection Comodo offers.

Guard your machine and your data with the following free software. Simply install and run the software, and hop online. East-Tec Eraser can clean the history of more than three hundred popular applications, from peer-to-peer apps and instant messaging tools to email and office applications, and you can wipe free space, delete files permanently and rely on military-standard deletion protocols to make sure that data is really eliminated.

When it comes to Windows, East-Tec Eraser can scythe through your Recycle Bin, temporary files, documents and file histories — everywhere data is logged in the operating system.

This app also works with USB flash drives and memory cards, it can run automatically and on schedules, and it has smart hotkeys for quick operation — handy if you need to delete data in a hurry. The feature set is rounded out by advanced filtering, command-line operation, detailed reporting and a dashboard that highlights popular features, privacy issues and automatic updates.

This app can scan your version of Windows to wipe records of your recently-opened documents, searches, temp files and more, and it can scour every popular web browser to eliminate your history, form entries, passwords and everything else. This app is available in Standard and Pro editions.

Privacy Guardian comes from Iolo, which is a large company that specializes in all sorts of computing software — including Windows-optimizing applications, drive-cleaning utilities and anti-malware suites.

Unsurprisingly, its Privacy Guardian product is excellent. This tool is dedicated to protecting your privacy when browsing the web rather than when using Windows, so its feature set is heavily weighted towards web-browsing software. It works brilliantly here — it can wipe your histories, cookies, address bar data and autocomplete entries as well as your stock of temporary files and caches, and you can customize exactly what web-browsing data is deleted.

You can automate these tasks, too, and whitelisting is supported if you want to avoid wiping certain data. Iolo has included phishing detection tools that can alert you to suspicious emails, and Privacy Guardian goes a step further with protection against modern and invasive tracking, profiling and data-mining methods.

A private web-searching module is also included within Privacy Guardian. There are more in-depth options. The only downside is the design of the software itself, which is a little busy and clumsy. It can tackle PC cleaning, browser privacy and instant messenger applications, and it places ample emphasis on encrypting and protecting files that you need to share with other people. You can protect files with multiple levels of encryption, like a combination of passwords and different encryption algorithms, and it uses military-grade encryption standards — so you can be sure that your data will be secured.

It ships with GB of solid state storage, and can be expanded with external storage. In comparison to popular cloud-based email storage services, Helm offers more storage and more security. Helm has plans in the works to add a file storage product, VPN and messaging services. Kingston Technology is one of the leaders in the development and manufacturing of flash memory, and other memory-related products.

While using USB flash drives to transfer sensitive data can be more secure than using cloud-based storage, they also present unique risks. If someone loses their unencrypted flash drive then their files can easily fall into the wrong hands. Kingston Technology uses encryption to protect the contents of their devices.

SecureDrive offers encrypted external storage. It began as a data recovery service provider, and after gaining trust in that industry they moved into hardware storage and encryption. It avoids weaknesse s associated with older AES modes. Winston Privacy is a new player in the security hardware space. Its founders saw the issues with the surveillance economy that is taking over the internet. Winston is a hardware device that runs inline with your router and as a result protects every device on your WiFi.

Winston actually makes your browsing experience faster by blocking ads and other unnecessary tracking code.