Privacy software is software built to protect the privacy of its users. The software typically works in conjunction with Internet usage to control or limit the amount of information made available to third-parties. The software can apply encryption or filtering of various kinds.

Privacy software can refer to two different types of protection. One type is protecting a user's Internet privacy from the World Wide Web. There are software products that will mask or hide a user's IP address from the outside world in order to protect the user from identity theft. The other type of protection is hiding or deleting the users Internet traces that are left on their PC after they have been surfing the Internet. There is software that will erase all the users Internet traces and there is software that will hide and encrypt a user's traces so that others using their PC will not know where they have been surfing.

See also

General topics

• Encryption
• Proxy server

Software

• GNU Privacy Guard
• Portable Firefox
• Pretty Good Privacy
• Secure Shell
• Tor (anonymity network)
• PrivacyView