The search app Disconnect now features the most up-to-date Web security technology. It will let users search for anything on the Web without giving any private information.
When users search for something online, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing see what users were looking for. It also gets your personal information through an account sign-in or a cookie file and even the device you are using.
To avoid giving away too much information Brian Kennish, a former engineer at Google, and Casey Oppenheim, a consumer- and privacy-rights attorney, developed the startup Disconnect in 2011. The Disconnect search app is created to provide a way to search the Internet while maintaining privacy.
The Disconnect app acts as a proxy for online searches. When a Disconnect app user search for something, its query passes through the apps servers before being directed the search engine of choice. Once the query passes through the app's servers, any personal information is removed. It also doesn't log keywords, personal information, or IP addresses.
"The thing we've heard routinely from customers is what you search for is just incredibly personal information," said Oppenheim to InformationWeek. "The fact that this information is going [to] your search engine, ISP, websites, and potentially to government is something people have a real problem with."
On Monday, a faster and more secured version of Disconnect app for Android devices was launched along with a new Web app that is compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Apple's Safari.
The newest version of the app includes the up-to-date versions of security enhancing technologies like Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) that would keep search histories as private and secured as possible. It also brings back end changes that roughly double the speed of searching.
However, like any other technology companies in the United States, it can also be commanded to track future activities of a particular user, but its technology and practice of not logging any information would at least keep your previous activities secured and private.
