Labs

There are so many ways a potential snooper can find out about you - through your IP address, or by looking at cache files on your PC, for example - that securing yourself online can seem an intimidating undertaking. Ghostsurf tackles this problem head-on - it can erase your Internet tracks, block spyware and make you anonymous while you're online.

The main feature of this product is its IP cloaking facility. Like Internet Anonym, this hides your computer's address on the Internet so that your location cannot be tracked, and it does this, not only for browsers, but also for instant messenger applications - perfect if you don't want the people you chat to online to be able to trace you back to where you live. This feature does slow down your browser a bit and occasionally made it difficult for some pages to load - but if you're trying keep your identity out of the hands of thieves, this is a relatively small price to pay.

As well as the useful additional IP cloaking features, there are plenty of other tools thrown in to help you protect your privacy. You get an anti-spyware tool, which managed to detect and remove spyware the other applications on test hadn't spotted. There are tools here that allow you to erase your

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Internet tracks too - so you can get rid of cookies, traces of Web sites you've visited, and records of files you've recently opened in applications ranging from Microsoft Access and Windows Media Player to the widespread file-sharing software Kazaa.

Ghostsurf's ad blocker component is especially useful, blocking both popup and banner/in-page adverts (though it did let the occasional in-page ad through). We were really impressed that the software allows you to add particular advertisers to a banned list. So if you find someone's ads especially annoying, and they're not blocked automatically, you can tell the software to block them yourself.

Ghostsurf also blocks all manner of other types of irritation, from sponsored search listings to those annoying message boxes that ask if you want to set the page as your homepage. You can even assign sounds so you get a 'ping' whenever a popup is blocked.

Last, but not least, are the secure delete functions. Ghostsurf lets you specify the method it uses to digitally 'shred' files, including military-grade deletion methods (up to and including the Gutmann method) that overwrite your data several times with random information to ensure that none of it can be recovered using specialist undelete software.

The only downside is that the list of supported browsers only contains Internet Explorer and Opera - there's no option for Firefox in sight, and no tool for removing the Opera URL history either. This doesn't mean it can't be done, you'll just have to configure the program manually.

Despite the odd glitch, the range and comprehensiveness of the features on offer in Ghostsurf is excellent. It's not the cheapest program in this group test, but unlike some of its competitors, it justifies the asking price by giving you lots and lots for your money.