Today I just want to write about some important changes, or rather improvements, that are coming to Identity Cloaker 😉

1. New version of the Identity Cloaker client application will be available within the next few days.

Technically, this new version will not add any important new features. Except for one… There will now be a demo mode available. In other words, everyone will now be able to download Identity Cloaker and test the demo before ordering.

This may sound like a small change but it is not. Because Identity Cloaker will now be a freely downloadable application, it will become much more widespread and will also get one of those “Certified No-Spyware Included” certificates from the software download portals such as download.com etc.

For those who have been hesitating to order a subscription (despite there is a money back guarantee of course), this is great news because it will make it possible for everyone to test Identity Cloaker without any kind of commitment.

I know how great Identity Cloaker is and I want to share this experience with the whole world 🙂 Really, with the raising number of rubish software calling itself “proxy switcher”, I find it necessary to show the world the difference. Keep in mind, Identity Cloaker is not a proxy switcher. It may look so on the surface, but it’s an exponentially more complex system under the hood. That’s whyt it works so well.

It’s great news for our affiliates too. Many demo testers = more exposure = more brand building = more confidence = more sales = more affiliate commissions.

2. 10-days Trial accounts

In addition to our standard 3,6, and 12-month subscription, there will also now be a 10-day trial subscription priced at 4.97 EURo, without automatic rebilling at the end of the 10 day period.

I have realized that for some people it may be too difficult to order the 3-month subscription at 27.97 EURo because they simply don’t know what they are buying. So in addition to the demo version (demo mode actually), there will now also be this very inexpensive trial subscription. That should allow just about anyone to try Identity Cloaker and I believe it will also lead to affiliate commissions increase.

Why? Because some customers now simply order the most affordable 3-month subscription because they are not willing to go straight for the 12-month one despite that it has a much lower per month price. In other words, they don’t want to “risk” too much money if something went wrong.

This makes sense, despite of the money back guarantee, because most people do not want to spend money for something they have yet to see. So now some (or most?) customers will order the very cheap trial subscription and then after they test everything, they will order the 6 or 12-month subscription with confidence. They will know what they are buying. It’s a win-win situation.

3. Minor sales page improvements

Again, this information is important most for our valued affiliates. There will be some mostly minor improvements on the sales page soon (within a week). I plan to order an ecover graphic and use some very catchy graphical elements. There will be changes in the sales page text as well – some parts will be somewhat extended. And there will be now the “Free download” selling point and some simple but effective landing pages for affiliates, focused at converting even some generic / not very targetted traffic.

That’s about it for now, more news coming soon…

Do you like free proxy servers?

I am talking about those “free” proxy servers you enter either directly into your web browser configuration or use some automated software to do this automatically “in the background” for you.

I will tell you one thing. I am an IT guy and I am pretty sure I understand my stuff quite well. In my opinion, the “free proxy servers” are borderline scam! I am not talking about the web proxies – i.e. those websites where you enter your URL and click “visit”. Despite that, in my opinion, those are good for the casual use only, they are at least legitimate. Most of them at least.

But do you want to know what those “free” proxy servers are way too often? They are just misconfigured software running on someone’s servers. That someone unintentionally allowed unrestricted access to the proxy server he/she attempted to configure properly but failed at, because it’s not a simple task.

They initially don’t even know they have this problem until someone begins to really abuse the bandwidth resources they have allocated and that usually doesn’t take long – that’s why they stop working so soon. If you use such a proxy, you may be actually stealing their bandwidth! Bandwidth that someone has to pay for in cold cash.

But you know what? Don’t trust me! Just go and find who has the particular proxy IP address assigned and contact them. I bet they will be surprised if you tell them what’s going on.

Some of those “free” proxies work even as so-called “honeypots” operated by hackers. I don’t have exact numbers on this problem but when I was doing some Internet research earlier this year, it indeed lead me to the conclusion there may be quite a few. I don’t think the servers are rented by the hackers themselves. It doesn’t work that way. They are most likely just compromised computers/servers.

In my not-so-humble opinion, using “free” proxies is a pretty risky business no matter how you look at it. There are even many software applications that help you find working free proxy servers and then automate the process of switching your web browser to use one of them. Some of those applications even look relatively professional.

But let me ask you one simple question…

Do they know who owns the free proxy servers? Nope, THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHO OWNS THEM! Well, you get the picture.

Conclusion: If you really do need to use a free service, use web proxy servers (web based), TOR, or JAP. TOR and JAP are usually slow – *very* slow but should offer a relatively good level of anonymity. If using web proxy servers, try to use the established ones only.

I often hear about the brand new Google Chrome web browser and the upcoming Microsoft (or is it Windows?) Internet Explorer 8 and how great they are. One of their most important new features is supposedly their privacy mode or how they call it.

Great, “Finally we can get some privacy on the net” I hear you saying! Well, maybe. But not with those tools I am afraid. The term “privacy mode” is a bit misleading in my opinion. Not false marketing, it’s just important to know what it has been designed for and what is beyond its scope.

The privacy modes offered by those, as well as the other web browsers on the market, are good for one thing only. When the privacy mode is enabled, no traces are left in the operating system registry, no cookies and history is stored on the local PC.

So when you want to hide the fact that you have just visited that ton of porn webs from your wife or kids, it will do the job. That’s what it has been designed for – of course not just for the porn webs but we know the truth, right? 😉

It can also mask the user-agent browser string pretending you are using a different web browser with a different preferred language. In my opinion, that’s just a feeble attempt at ensuring your anonymity.

So, is that real privacy?! It helps for sure. It’s great when you share your computer with someone else and I am not saying those are bad features. Far from that!

What I am afraid of, however, is that once those web browsers become widespread, many people, mostly those technically less savvy ones, will get that very dangerous false feeling of privacy and anonymity on the Internet.

They will think this way: “I just enable this great privacy mode and nobody will see what I am doing on the net, nobody will know where I am coming from, nobody will be able to steal my private data.”.

But this, my unknown Internet friend, this is not happening. You will need a bigger caliber for that.

Much bigger!