14 DAY TRIAL // After using the computer it'll be left with traces of whatever you have done. Whether you use the computer simply for watching a movie with Windows Media Player, browsing the Internet or simply working on documents, your computer will keep track of all your moves. If you are a privacy freak, I am sure that you would want to use thee computer as stealthily as possible.
Without specialized help, the trace cleaning task could be a real time waster, so making the job automatic would really come in handy. There are several applications on the market able to clean the data left behind your activity. One of them is Privacy Killer, a program that despite its young age (current version is 1.1), succeeds in covering many areas filled with private data.
Since last reviewed version the developer has been a busy bee and made lots of improvements to the application and new features have been added as well. Privacy Locker comes as a substitute for Windows' Screen Saver. It drops a transparent veil (transparency can be adjusted with a slider going from zero to 100) on your screen. Unlocking the screen is password based so no authorized access will be permitted.
Immediately after installing the application, you get to choose your desired skin. I went with MSN Ice, given the upped temperature outside, but you can choose from Vista Pearl, MacOS Tiger, Mango or go with the default one. Don't fret, if it turns out that the skin was not to your taste, a simple change in Preferences would do the trick.
Among the improvements made to this version of Privacy Killer, there's the web browser homepage hijacking protection which prevents malicious code from changing the user set homepage. The option is to be found in Preferences, together with Privacy locker password and transparency settings. Unfortunately, the feature is available only for Internet Explorer and Firefox. But it is better than nothing as you can set different homepages for each browser.
Startup Manager has been equipped with a brand new "Add Program" button. This feature was a must as all you could do in the previous version was deleting the startup applications. Now you can also add programs of your own to load with Windows. My recommendation would be not to abuse this new function as the more programs you add to the startup list, the more it will take the OS to load.
The list of programs that can be stripped of their document history has also suffered some changes. Some applications have been removed (RegEdit, WordPad and MS Paint) and replaced with new ones (Office 2007, Adobe Flash Player, Morpheus, Windows Defender and ZoneAlarm). This way privacy Killer keeps up with the new software needs of the user and provides support for the most used applications on the market.
The application will still ask you to close the web browser when privacy cleaning action is to be taken and the activity is conducted with the same diligence as the previous version. In case you do not want to be asked to close the web browser during cleaning you can disable the pop-up from Preferences window, under General Settings.
Privacy Killer can overwrite the data up to 10 times, making it almost impossible to recover with the usual data recovery software tools. During our testing, the software did its job responsibly and the deleted files could no longer be recuperated.
The themes available work great and their transparency goes hand in hand with Vista. The unfortunate thing is that you cannot tamper with the level of see-through of the skin. In case you have a heavy desktop image it'll be a bit difficult to make out all the options provided by the software.
The Good
Privacy Killer comes with lots of improvements, which influence both its behavior (stability fixes, better memory management, themes are now loading properly etc.) and its functionality (you can now add applications to load at startup and new applications are supported).
The application will display at every start the status of the total number of files and registry items deleted and will show the total amount of space that has been gained during the cleaning operation.
The Bad
A few spelling mistakes are not too much of a trouble when the software does a great job, but I think that leaving the transparency level of the theme to users' choice would be great.
During testing, Privacy Killer could not establish a connection with the mother-ship in order to download the latest updates, despite the lack of a firewall to hinder communication.
Adding an option that allows advanced users to add specific locations to be cleared of files automatically would be to Privacy Killer's advantage.
The Truth
The price drop is the best improvement of the application. Compared to the previous version analyzed, this one is almost free (approximately $20).
Privacy Killer is a good tool to eliminate the traces from the most frequently used applications. The process is swift, clean and reliable.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
