Anti Tracks Privacy Cleaner

Whether you like it or not, unwanted information sticks on your computer unless you do something about it. Privacy details like web browsing tracks or temporary data can very easily give away your computer usage habits. Plus, all this has its contribution to the overall performance deficit of the system, especially if you let it accumulate.

The palette of options that can lend a hand with cleaning up your tracks and eliminating data you no longer need is pretty wide. However, finding a specialized program that can do a good job with eliminating all the traces of your activity and offer something on the side is a tough mission.

Anti Tracks has been in this kind of business for a long time and experience should have a say on the quality of the application. It comes with a 15-day trial period and a price of $34.95 if you want to enjoy the benefits of the full version with no time limit. No other restrictions are imposed, save for IP masking services, which work only in certain parts of the world, but this is also available in the full edition of the program.

Installation takes a minute to complete and there are no unscheduled stops you should be paying attention to because nothing but the application itself gets installed on the system. At the end of this process, a clear cut, solid and simple interface awaits. Easy access to the functions and options of the application is enabled through the drop-down menus in the left hand side of the main screen. They can be expanded one at a time in order to create no confusion as to the part of the app you’re in.

Anti Tracks’ main utility is to erase the traces of your computer usage and web surfing, but over the stages of development, its functionality has been extended to clearing obsolete and duplicate files, as well as enforce privacy of your deleted data by wiping drives clean. To all this, there is the file security component of the software, which can be used to lock access to specific files and folders, and hide them from prying eyes.

Tracks Eraser is the first menu on the list. It comes with a default configuration generally suitable for Internet Explorer users as this is the only browser included in the tracks list. But Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera users can adjust this inconvenience from the Settings menu, lower in the list, under Browsers section. Here, there is the possibility to configure the types of tracks that should be eliminated in the process.

The list of supported web browsers is composed of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, AOL and Netscape. For each, you can choose to purge information such as browsing history, cookies, cache or download history. But some of them feature special options like getting rid of auto-complete forms or location bar history. Also, for IE, Firefox, Netscape and AOL, you get to choose which cookies should be kept and which should go. This way, you get to protect your browsing habits.

Firefox and Netscape users have to bear in mind that for Anti Tracks to do its job properly with these browsers, it has to be pointed to the correct profile holding all the information that needs to be purged. For this, there is the profile manager that can detect all the profiles on the computer. It can be used either when setting up browser track cleaning or right before the actual cleaning process (a pop up will guide you through).

As far as the Windows clean-up session goes, it can also be configured from the same Settings menu in the lower part of the main application window. The options in this case refer both to the operating system, as well as to clearing most recently used documents list in Microsoft Office programs (with the 2010 suite, this did not work).

Selectable Windows locations that get to be dumped of files are temporary folder, recent documents list, Run history, search computer history, network cache, clipboard, open/save history, application logs, registry backup, fragmented files or streams. If you do not know exactly what sort of data these places contain and what it may come in for, it would be best not to alter the default configuration.

As all cleaning options are configured from the Settings menu, this is the place to make your choices for eliminating obsolete files or tweak the duplicate file finder. The difficulty of this task is no higher than setting up other instruments, so there is nothing to worry about. In the case of obsolete files, you can pick the extensions the program should look for, add your own sets, edit or remove existing ones. Additionally, there is the possibility to create a folder exclusion list or enable search parameters such as creation/modification/access date, size or file attributes.

With dupes, the set of options has been adopted for matching rules (name, size, date and time, CRC) to make the search more accurate; to render the search faster, you can opt to skip zero length files. You can also pick the file formats that should be suspected, as well as add your own lot. The file exclusion list already available in the software can be extended with entries of your own to brisk the search up.

With all the checkmarks in the right place, you can start a cleaning session with no problems. Anti Tracks proved to be both thorough and fast in our case, purging almost all destinations we pointed it to of the unnecessary content. It did a great job clearing the tracks stored in web browsers and in Windows locations, but it could not get rid of MS Word 2010 recently used documents list.

A very good option in Tracks Eraser menu is the file shredding utility, which supports a wide palette of data destruction algorithms to dim the chances to recover erased documents to zero. It features DoD 5220.22-M (3 passes), the famous 35 passes Gutmann algorithm, NSA’s 7 passes algorithm and Russian GOST. If none of these represent a good compromise between speed and security, you can create your own data destruction algorithm by choosing the data file contents that should be overwritten with (random characters, zero or one characters) and the number of times; you can also opt for scrambling the name of the file or folder. All these ensure that your data is lost for good and cannot be recovered. We put this to several tests and none of the conventional methods we used was successful even to partially recover data.

In Disk Cleaner menu, you get to lose obsolete files and duplicate data according to the set options, but also eliminate broken shortcuts pointing to network, CD or removable drives. This does not mean that the application won’t verify for shortcuts without a target on the hard disk and serve them to you. It will actually scoop them all from the Desktop folder, recent documents location or in the Start menu.

Duplicates can be detected with great accuracy if you choose the right settings. Verifying the CRC of the files is crucial to spot files with the same content but different name and creation date, and in our case, this made the difference between false positives and accurate findings. The options available after all the duplicates have been detected allow you to open the files, view their Properties window or select/deselect them all. You also have a set of erase alternatives: select the preferred algorithm, back up data or archive it first, send it to Windows Recycle Bin or erase it for good.

Besides shredding existing files, Anti Tracks is also capable of sanitizing free disk space so that no elements are recoverable. Disk wiping options are as reliable as the ones for the file shredder because the same algorithms are used. Keep in mind that in the case of the wiper, only the free space is affected and no valid data is deleted.

To increase its functionality, Anti Tracks provides you with IP Concealer function to hide your IP address when browsing shady websites. You will actually be navigating behind a proxy, thus keeping your IP details private. Unfortunately, the limitations of this tool in the trial version prevented us from testing it. As a supplementary instrument, for your identity protection, the developer included the IE Protector option designed to keep your browser’s settings (i.e. IE’s start page and other paths) intact from any sort of hijacking.

More security is on the way through the next menu, File Security. Here, Anti Tracks makes available the tools to prevent files and folders from being opened by unwanted users. The application can help you with this in two ways: either lock the data or completely hide it from view. Locking works great, as all files in the target location are encrypted with one of the 12 cyphers available (Blowfish, Twofish, Serpent, Rijndael, Ice, Thin Ice, DES, 3DES, etc.) and locked under a user-defined password; only Anti Tracks can release them.

Hiding data is in fact pure stenography, which means that your files are encrypted, compressed and then incorporated in a supported container: BMP, WAV, JPEG or JPG. Opening that picture will work as if nothing but the image was available and the only thing giving away the extra load would be the size of the resulting file. However, as long as no one sees anything suspicious in an oversized image, the method works like a charm. When extracting hidden data, you have to remember the right encryption algorithm, hash and password; otherwise, your files won’t be extracted.

The startup manager included in the suite contains all the basic functions a user may need: enable, disable or remove an entry to increase Windows startup speed. Still on the performance side, Anti Tracks provides quick access to Windows Performance Monitor to take a better look at how the system moves. Windows’ safety net in case of trouble, System Restore, is also present in the menus of the application, under Backups.

Anti Tracks keeps good tabs on its activity and proof of this is available under the Reports section. Here, you’ll find statistics on erased data and a summary of how much space the program has cleared for you (all counters can be reset whenever you feel like it).

You have 15 days to put its extended functionality to test and decide whether the app is worth the money or not. Our tests showed that Anti Tracks is reliable regardless of the web browser you use and can be trusted with getting rid of obsolete data (although I recommend you take a look at the list before erasing the data) or destroying already deleted files or valid information. One thing to remember before you start to work with the program is that the Settings menu is the first to go to, in order to make the necessary adjustments as to the data that needs to be detected and cleared.

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