Browzar: a first look

Browzar doesn't even need to be installed into Windows. The downloadable file is a self-contained application. It can also run directly from a USB thumb drive.

However, Browzar is no security panacea. It does not stop your ISP from recording what you do, and Browzar would not prevent a person from being exposed to search data leaks of the AOL kind. Total online Web anonymity requires that you also use a Web proxy service, which Browzar is not. When this was mentioned this to a Freeserve representative, the response was, 'There are other products in the pipeline', so perhaps we'll eventually see a more complete privacy solution from the company.

The Browzar browser also has interface limitations. It does not have tabbed browsing, and standard UI shortcuts are not implemented (the extra 'back' button on a mouse won't work, for example).

If you need desktop security when you're browsing, and especially if you want a somewhat secure browser you can run from a USB drive, Browzar is a good solution. But it's not the only one: there's Heatseek (designed for adult content and definitely not safe for work), for example; and if you use Firefox, don't forget the 'clear private data' keyboard shortcut -- Ctrl+Shift+Delete.

Update (5/9/2006)

I must angrily report that I've been duped. Browzar does, sometimes, leave tracks. They're not as easy to find as the records left behind by the native Internet Explorer application, and Browzar also leaves incomplete trails, rather than the full history that IE does. But in several cases I was able to recover clear HTML files from pages I visited using Browzar. Even when I ran Browzar directly from a USB thumb drive, it left traces of its activity behind on my host computer.

In sum, the current version of Browzar is not reliably secure and it does not perform as advertised. Alternatives include Firefox and Safari, both of which have privacy functions. Even Microsoft's own Internet Explorer can optionally erase files it creates during surfing.