any recommendations for making your net browsing anonymous?

[bennymac]

At home I do a lot of internet banking and shopping. Where I work I stay in staff housing and use a password protected wifi network that is shared by all staff and managed either by the building owner or the IT dept (it's unclear). Occasionally I'll use this wifi connection to torrent a movie or show.

This job involves a high degree of professionalism and I'd like to figure out a way to make my after work internet browsing history secure.

Any tip/recommendations? I'm fairly ignorant as to what the options are. I've spent some time searching the net but it's still all greek to me.

I use an imac at home and an ipad when away for work. I use Safari mainly but am open to using other browsers.

[milton]

Firefox, Chrome and IE 9 all have private browsing modes. Nothing is left behind on your computer after you close the browser.

However, if your network traffic is going through the company firewall there's not much you can do to hide where you are going unless you are using a proxy. This is probably the question you meant to ask.

[systemoverblow'd]

Safari has a "private browsing' function under the safari menu. That works if using safari. If using Firefox you can force it to flush everything when quitting or use "command + shift + delete" to flush anything manually.

iPad also has private browsing feature.

Only downside to private browsing is the URL bar won't remember URLs so you will need to input that every time.

[Cyber Cop]

Take a look at netshade. http://www.raynersoftware.com/netshade/

Not free, but will work on your mac and iPad. Not real sure how using a proxy from inside a network works as far as hiding your activity from the network admin. I would assume they can identify your computer on the network even if you are using a proxy. I always assumed it just kept you anonymous to the computers you are connecting with and makes tracing you back very difficult.

[Cyber Cop]

another option would be Tor. https://www.torproject.org/

[jfost]

cant you just buy magazines for while you're at your work housing?

[Supermoon]

Well, you could buy a 3G/4G internet card from Verizon or somebody similar, and just run your after work internet off of that thing, or you could just hope nobody is really looking that closely. I imagine you are not the only one taking some personal time in staff housing.

Also remember that your Flash player has a cache separate from your internet cache that you need to clear out, even if you're in safe mode.

[stevesliva]

Occasionally I'll use this wifi connection to torrent a movie or show.

Don't do that.

[Harry]

At home, with my wife and/or Mom monitoring my internet use, I only do internet banking and shopping. Where I work I stay in staff housing and use a password protected wifi network that is shared by all staff and managed either by the building owner or the IT dept (it's unclear). Occasionally I'll use this wifi connection to surf internet porn sites and offshore gambling.This job involves a high degree of professionalism and I'd like to figure out a way to make my after work internet browsing history secure.

Fixed it for you.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Hm. I think they'll be able to tell you're torrenting from inside the company connection.
It'll be pretty easy to tell; you can just see all the open connections on whatever port with whatever protocol. Also, you'll possibly be hogging everyone's bandwidth.
It's possible you could ask it about a "friend at another company" and qos priorities.
I'd be not ok with someone torrenting on my network since, especially small isps, and some bigger ones, will take an active, or at least transparent roll in copyright enforcement. Ie: even if they don't share your company's name with someone, they will let you know someone is after you, and possibly drop you.
also, if you're really getting some good down/upload speeds, people will start complaining about slow internet.
In short: stop it.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[Jubelale]

Your only way to secure your internet connection is with a third party vpn service. You would run the vpn client locally on your computer and all traffic across the wi-fi network would be encrypted and inaccessible to your network admin, and would show only your connection to the vpn service provider IP. As others mentioned, you would still need to take steps to cover your tracks on the computer itself.

It is easy for the network administrator to monitor unencrypted network traffic and inspect the contents of the packets. And in situations such as yours where the network administrator also has administrative control of your computer, they can easily decrypt and re-encrypt https traffic to sites such as your bank through a technique commonly known as a man in the middle attack. This gives the administrator not only the ability to view the contents of the packets, but to take your session cookie and use it to establish a new connection of their own.

Coming from someone who works in corporate IT, you should always assume big brother is watching when you are using their systems.

[bennymac]

Thanks for the info and options

Where I work is in the middle of nowhere. Literally 1000 miles away from anywhere. I know that doesn't protect me from the law but I'm willing to risk that my 3-4 torrent sessions a year aren't going to attract much attention out there. The wifi is a residential internet connection (this isn't the corporate network) but I assume it's maintained by the IT guy as he lives in the same building as the staff (he has his own separate wifi network).

Also when I'm in staff housing at most there are 2 other people using that wifi. By virtue of our work schedules my torrenting won't be interfering with their connection speeds.

[splat]

another option would be Tor. https://www.torproject.org/

I got the impression when using Tor that any download makes your computer visible/identifiable, CC.