Anonymizer Guards Against Evercookie JavaScript API With Free Firefox Plugin

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Anonymizer, Inc., www.anonymizer.com, the leader in consumer online anonymity solutions, announced today that it has developed Anonymizer Nevercookie, a free Firefox plugin that protects against the Evercookie API. The plugin extends Firefox's private browsing mode by preventing Evercookies from identifying and tracking users. Anonymizer Nevercookie will be available as a free download later this month.

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"Recent developments in Web tracking technologies have rendered the privacy tools built into browsers almost completely ineffective," said Lance Cottrell, founder and chief scientist for Anonymizer. "Anonymizer Nevercookie will close the gap between Firefox's privacy features and actual privacy so that when you go into private browsing mode, you are truly protected."

Evercookie is a new, more persistent cookie form that enables the storage of cookie data in a number of different locations, such as Flash cookies and various locations of HTML5 storage. This allows websites to track user behavior even when users have enabled private browsing. Because an Evercookie stores data in locations outside of where standard cookies are stored, an Evercookie can rebuild itself unless users go through a number of steps to completely clear and reset their local storage.

Anonymizer Nevercookie simplifies this process and eliminates the manual steps required to completely remove Evercookies. And it does so without also removing all of the necessary cookies that a user actually wants to keep, such as those for browsing history and remembered logins. When Anonymizer Nevercookie is engaged along with Firefox's private browsing mode, it quarantines an Evercookie and removes it after the browsing session.

Dr. Elie Burzstein, a noted Web security researcher at the Stanford University Research Lab, stated: "My testing and review found that when using Anonymizer Nevercookie along with Firefox's private browsing mode, users are protected from all of the currently known tracking systems that use browser features to follow users across multiple sessions, such as Evercookie. Specifically, Nevercookie prevents abuse to both the Adobe Flash Local Storage Object (LSO) and Microsoft's Silverlight Isolated Storage (MIS)."

Anonymizer Nevercookie was developed by Anonymizer Labs, a dedicated research and development division of Anonymizer, Inc.

Availability

To be notified when the free Anonymizer Nevercookie Firefox plugin is available, visit Anonymizer.com, follow Anonymizer on Twitter (@AnonymizerInc), or "like" Anonymizer on Facebook (facebook.com/anonymizer) for updates.

About Anonymizer

As the global leader in online privacy, anonymity and identity protection solutions, Anonymizer continues to push the envelope with products that allow consumers and organizations to remain safe, secure, and anonymous each time they go online. The company's proprietary technologies address the needs of home users, businesses and other customers. With a pristine 15-year history of protecting customer online identities, Anonymizer's products have set the standard in Internet privacy, and protected billions of Web searches and personal communications.

SOURCE Anonymizer, Inc.