Is it possible to prevent the disclosure of my ISP over the net? I presume that my web browser is responsible for this? I know that this is the case because I check it through the different websites that reveal your info; and they reveal my O/S and IE versions and my ISP; cant that be disabled? I know that the router address will show ,but the other info sounds like a browser issue. I am using WinXP Pro with IE6 and a Linksys firewall router. I have my browser privacy set to high. ActiveX and Java are on basic so as to access the web. Are there any other settings that might work? Thank you.

The address being shown is your IP address, the one given to you by your ISP. It is a simple matter to do a DNS lookup from that address to see who owns is. There is no way you can prevent this being shown. It is part of the Internet Protocol and is transmitted with every packet you send, whether it by you browser, E-mail or FTP. Enter your IP address into the following Web page and you will see what I mean: http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/whois/whois.html Just think about it. If you type http://computing.net into you browser address bar, http://computing.net needs to know where to send the information back to, therefore it needs your IP address. Remote sights also need to know your OS and Browser because some sites respond differntly depending on which OS and browser is being used. Stuart

you can get ghost surf, i think www.tenebril.com, or anonymizer or webroot's private surf (www.webroot.com).. and they will hide your ip address and ips and browser info etc that is relayed by the browser. hope this helps!

I had a look at the Ghost Surf site an the impression I got was that it was a bit of scarmongering. The only thing that Ghost Surf does that a decent firewall won't do is hide your IP address. So what if sites you visit know your ISP. No big deal. The only people should to be concerned are those that are up to no good and have good reason for wanting to hide there IP address. Hiding you IP address from sites you visit wont stop hackers getting at you if you do not have a firewall. When hackers go out looking for targets, they do not target particular IP addresses. They just send run a programme that searches a whole blobk of address until it finds one that is vunerable. It yours is, it will be found sooner or later and no amount of spoof addressing is going to stop it. You still have the same IP address allocated by your ISP and it is still part of the Internet. Stuart

When I go to a website that displays your internet information I understand that my IP address is shown ,but my ISP shouldnt be attached to the IP address; and also it shouldnt display my O/S and IE versions should it? Cant the displaying of the ISP, O/S and IE be disabled or blocked? If so how? Thank you.

No you cannot. I have already explained why those items are required. You cannot avoid having your ISP attached to your IP Address. The IP number is registered with the Internet Registration Authority as are all IP addresses. You ISP owns the IP address you use. They only loan it to you while you pay your subscription. IP addresses are not just picked out of hat at random. Thery are all registered to somebody, with the exception of three groups of private addresses that are used for LANs and never appear on the public network. You can register an IP address in your own name if you want, but then it would be your name that would show up and not your ISPs. Stuart