Slashdot | Web-based Anonymizer Discontinued A number of people have commented on this non-story regarding Anonymizer discontinuing services for Private Surfing. Some comments are making false or misleading statements, so I will address the issue here in hope to set the record straight.

Anonymizer chose to discontinue Private Surfing because its basic methodology was reaching the end of its useful life. The product was very effective when Web sites were simple, flat HTML. Today, most popular Web sites require active content to function. Active content presents a major problem in URL re-writing proxies; hostile code can cause the browser to make a direct connection to the server, thus exposing the user's identity.

Anonymizer's Private Surfing product used very sophisticated techniques to parse and re-write the active content to enable it to work safely. Despite our best efforts though, we felt that Private Surfing would not be able to maintain what is considered to be an acceptable level of service by Anonymizer's standards. We feel that it is not possible to provide functional active content and full security without the use of client software. To be clear, Anonymizer has only discontinued its web-based private surfing service—Anonymizer still provides client-based privacy services.

Anonymizer started the process to "end of life" Private Surfing many months ago. Subscribers were notified in advance and automatically transitioned to our latest privacy protection solution,Anonymous Surfing, at no additional charge for one year.

Anonymizer is in no way backing away from its commitment to deliver the most secure online privacy services for consumers, businesses and government organizations.