Best internet privacy software reviews
| # | Product | Overall Score | Download |
| 1 |
Piriform CCleaner
|
4.8/5 Read more | Download Free |
| 2 |
ParetoLogic Privacy Controls
|
4.5/5 Read more | Download 34.95$ |
| 3 |
CyberScrub Privacy Suite
|
4.5/5 Read more | Download 59.95$ |
| 4 |
east-tec Eraser
|
4.3/5 Read more | Download 29.95$ |
| 5 |
CyberGhost 5 VPN
|
4/5 Read more | Download 63.48$ |
| 6 |
Super Anti-Spyware Professional
|
4.3/5 Read more | Download Retired |
| 7 |
PC Tools Privacy Guardian
|
4.1/10 Read more | Download Retired as of 2013-05-18 |
What are the benefits of using internet privacy software?
Internet privacy software helps you maintain the status quo on the arena you should implicitly have full control of. By definition, your own privacy is something that belongs to you solely, and no one has the right or authority to violate it – that’s the ideal state of things though. Obviously, cybercriminals do not share this perspective. Some of them try to track your online activity and habits, others even go beyond that and venture to steal your personal information, including financial data, passwords and other sensitive stuff.
Not only is the best Internet privacy software capable of reducing your vulnerability to the minimum, it can as well reliably protect your identity against any ill-disposed intrusion. Its main focus is on erasing your sensitive files beyond recovery, which might sound a little odd actually, but it does make sense because data removal with the default Windows option is no good in this regard – it can be recovered afterwards. Another critical constituent of such software’s activity is removal of the entities that may serve as instruments for unsolicited monitoring and identity theft: tracking cookies, Windows history, browsing history, third-party software traces and the like – these can enable the bad guys to retrieve your keyhole information in the long run.
Reliable Internet privacy software is therefore your trump card to beat the criminals who attempt to get hold of the little fragments of confidential data about you and then piece them all together to figure out who you are and how to take advantage of you.
Best internet privacy software: rating criteria
To save you some time and effort making up your mind, we have reviewed different utilities and analyzed to which extent they meet the set of criteria for the best Internet Privacy software. Our evaluation was based on a number of aspects that we deem most relevant for this particular type of software. Here they are:
- Usability: It shouldn’t take solving a puzzle to find and use the features you need. Combining simplicity and functionality is one of the basic principles enabling the vendors to survive and prosper in this competitive market. The privacy software we included on our list is comprehensive enough for customers with different level of computer expertise to use. More specifically, the most deserving utilities should feature simple setup in a few steps and low influence on system productivity during scans and data wiping process. Furthermore, it matters a lot whether or not the user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.
- Features: The best privacy software annihilates the chances of identity theft by means of deleting private information irreversibly. Since there is a growing quantity of variables in the algo of privacy-infringing fraudulent activities, the software should keep up with this broad spectrum of advancing challenges – and this is where the feature set matters. These characteristics come down to advanced browser and Windows history cleaning options, as well as such crucial things as file shredding, email and chat history cleaning, free space wiping, obliteration of media player and streaming video data, etc.
- Efficiency: Those who underestimate the importance of this criterion are apparently missing the point. It’s flawless effectiveness that makes privacy software trustworthy in the first place, so you want an application that actually protects your identity by completely destroying the files that can turn into something close to your ID if stolen. What matters in this regard is the data wipe algorithms that are utilized, whose effectiveness depends mostly on the number of overwrite passes during file deletion. Some of these algos are AFSSI-5020, NAVSO P-5239-26, German VSITR, US DoD standard, B. Schneier’s algorithm, Russian GOST P50739-95, etc. We picked the utilities best coping with the data removal task so that you can be confident you’re completely in charge of your digital identity.
- Support: A great deal of impression from using Internet Privacy software depends on how helpful and transparent its support is, so we couldn’t possibly neglect this aspect in our evaluation. What we took into account is availability of the knowledgebase (online documentation, tutorials, FAQs) and contact channels diversity, which should fully provide users with product information, troubleshooting help and feedback opportunities.
