Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

When Surfing ...

Problems & Product Conflicts with earlier versions corrected in version 1.3

Do you have an unanswered question?

Contact us at support@surferprotectionprogram.com

What are the system requirements for Surfer Protection Program?

Surfer Protection Program's system requirements are modest:

  • Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP.
  • 941K of available disk space. The program requires 417K; the remaining 524K is used for documentation.
  • Approximately 2.6MB of memory to run the program; an additional 0.4MB of memory allows the program to record a 5-page Message Log of historical information.

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What are the browser requirements for Surfer Protection Program?

Surfer Protection Program requires a browser that can be configured to communicate with a proxy. It must also support the use of web pages that contain layers (found in 4.0 and later browsers).

Most free ISP providers override the browser's proxy configuration. Thus, free ISP services such as Juno, Excite's FreeLane, AltaVista Free Access, and Freeserve will not work with Surfer Protection Program.

If you are an AOL user, you can still use your AOL dial-up connection. However, you must install and use a browser other than AOL's proprietary browser.

Given that Surfer Protection Program does not contact your web servers, do I need to be concerned that the software will quickly become obsolete and lose its ability to safeguard my privacy?

No. Surfer Protection Program is an HTTP proxy. The HTTP standard on which it depends is a very structured and well-defined protocol that does not change dramatically from year to year. Proposed modifications to the standard undergo a rigorous review process within the technical community so that all interested parties — including product development firms — have the opportunity to comment, gauge the impact to their offerings, and update their products or services accordingly.

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Do I have to be a computer wizard to use Surfer Protection Program?

Of course not. First, you need to be able to download a file from our site and install the program on your computer. Second, you need to understand how to direct Surfer Protection Program to relax its Privacy Settings and accept Cookies from sites that require them. The second step should only be carried out for sites that you trust.

Downloading a File and Installing the Program

After you have clicked on one of the download links found within the "Download Trial Copy" section of the Download page, you will be prompted to indicate where on your computer the downloaded file should be saved. We recommend using the Desktop so that the file can be easily located. Once the download is completed, double-click the file to initiate the installation process. The installation process is straightforward and has been tested with users having a wide variety of skill and experience levels. Once the program is installed, the downloaded file can be Deleted. (The Download page also includes instructions for removing (uninstalling) the program from your computer.) To run the installed program, sequentially choose: Start —> Programs —> Surfer Protection Program —> Run Surfer Protection Program.

Relaxing your Privacy Settings to Accept Cookies from a Trusted Site

Surfer Protection Program safeguards your privacy as soon as it is installed and running. Its default settings will not allow cookies to leave your computer. In a situation where you are at a trusted site and are informed that a particular operation requires the use of cookies, you can relax the settings for that site as described below. Remember, other sites will still not be able to surreptitiously receive cookies from your system.

  1. Invoke Surfer Protection Program's Control Panel by simply appending "++" to the web site's address and press the Enter key.
  2. Select the Privacy Settings command within the Control Panel.
  3. On the Privacy Settings page, complete the form found just below the Control Panel by:
    • entering the trusted web site's address in the box labeled New Pattern,
    • selecting the Allow option for each item listed, and
    • clicking the Submit button.

That's it! Surfer Protection Program combines power with flexibility to safeguard your online privacy.

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Does Surfer Protection Program stop web bugs?

By itself, Surfer Protection Program definitely reduces the effectiveness of a web bug. When working with an anonymous proxy, it eliminates the web bug's threat. To understand the Surfer Protection Program's defense, a few facts about web bugs must be understood:

  • A web bug is simply a request from a program on your machine for a specific web page from a web server using the internet protocol HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). This request is like every other request your program makes, except the web bug request is made to assist its owner in learning who is reading the web page.
  • You can't tell a web bug by its shape or size. A web bug may be visible or invisible. A web bug may be a 1 pixel dot or a 2 inch by 2 inch graphic image. With the advent of layers for web pages, it can be a huge, invisible, 8 inch by 11 inch graphic beneath a page of text. It's quite common to use 1 pixel graphics to color (fill) areas of the parent page and to use small "transparent" gifs as spacers to ensure alignment of an html table that provides the nice layout of the parent page. These 1 pixel graphics are not web bugs.
  • A web bug request may originate from your browser, or from a web enabled program running outside of and completely independent of your browser, e.g. Real Player, Microsoft's Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.

Surfer Protection Program treats every request as a potential threat (web bug).

  • Surfer Protection Program will delete eight fields from every request that it makes to web servers on the internet. These eight fields include the Cookie, User-Agent, Referer, and From fields. The web server will still receive your IP address and the name of the page you are requesting. The eight fields are provided in a request only when you ease the privacy settings for a specific site - a site you know and trust with your information.
  • You can define Surfer Protection Program as your http proxy to be used by all of your web enabled programs. (Microsoft Office products use Microsoft's Internet Explorer's proxy settings, so even if you don't use MSIE and you have the Office products, set MSIE's proxy settings to use Surfer Protection Program.)
  • You can direct Surfer Protection Program to send all of its requests, which have the eight fields removed, to another proxy on the internet that will hide your IP address, i.e. an anonymous proxy. With this configuration, the web server of the possible web bug will not see your IP address or any of the eight fields of the request. Additionally, if you happen to use a nosy anonymous proxy, it can only see your IP address and the page you are requesting. It can't see any of the eight fields used in an http request.

Want to know more about web bugs?

The following, from Surfer Protection Program's User Manual, is recommended reading:
A site with a wealth of information on privacy is http://www.privacyfoundation.org/ . From their home page, click on their resources tab, or click here, for their presentation of web bugs.

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Does Surfer Protection Program stop Pop-ups?

You can view the http message as a letter and envelope. The envelope contains all of the to/from information required to deliver the letter, which correlates to the http tags in an http message. The letter is the body of the http message. Surfer Protection Program will only modify or delete the envelope's data. The letter carries instructions to the browser to generate pop-ups, so Surfer Protection Program will not directly prevent pop-ups. However, You will find that most pop-ups are prevented by blocking a handful of advertising sites.

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Can I fake the referer [sic] field?

See Appendix I: The Eight HTTP fields, IP Address and your privacy and SPP Technical Manual, Privacy (Header Filter) Files

My Netscape Browser gives me an alert that says, "Alert! did not find a converter or decoder."
or
My MSIE Browser opens several File Download dialogs.

Both problems are due to advances in writing web pages. A writer is now able to have a web page with mini-web pages inside. These mini-web pages are called iframes. If you block a file that is used in an iframe, then the Netscape alert window or the MSIE File Download window will be observed.

In the default configuration, SPP returns a gif-file (picture) to requests that are blocked. The gif-file response to a blocked iframe request causes MSIE to pop-up the File Download dialog box and Netscape to pop-up the Alert winow, since the iframe expected either an html or a java script response. Using this default configuration, the solution to prevent these annoying windows is to not block the iframe request.

An alternate configuration is to let SPP return an html page as the blocked request's response. The html-file response to a blocked gif request causes the browser to depict the image as a "no response" display. (In MSIE this is a rectangle with a red x in the upper left corner. In Netscape, this is a rectangle with a torn page depicted in the upper left corner.) All blocked iframe requests will have text that reads "Surfer Protection Blocked this URL."

Which configuration is best to prevent the annoying pop-ups?

Both configurations maintain privacy and prevent the annoying pop-ups. The difference in the configurations can be viewed by asking two questions:  
  1. How much effort is required to setup rules to ensure the iframe requests are not blocked?
  2. Does the browser's "no response" image indicate a partial download?
 
The default configuration takes some effort to define the patterns to ensure that the iframe requests encountered on the pages you regularly search are not blocked and you can rely on the "no response" image as indication of a partial download. The alternate configuration takes almost no effort to setup and you will see the "no response" image for all blocked images as well as partially downloaded images.

For frequently visted pages, use the default configuration. When exploring the web and finding many pages that cause the annoying pop-ups, change to the alternate configuration.

To use the default configuration (return an image file for blocked requests):

You must define rules in the Permitted Sites files to ensure that requests for iframes are not blocked by SPP. By using the message logs, look for a blocked request that
  • has a name similar to the name in the file/alert pop-up window.
  • does not have a name ending with a dot and three or four letter combination, e.g. http://www.foo.com/pictures/planes.gif.
We will maintain the latest copy of our Blocked Sites and Permitted Sites files on our download page for your use.

To use the alternate configuration (return an html file for blocked requests):

You must edit the configuration file by placing a # character at the begining of the line that reads:
Block_URI_Image: spp32pix.gif

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