You are now reading this post via my own blog site, hosted by wordpress.com. And everything work so magically that you don’t even have to memorize my blog IP address if you have my blog subscribed, bookmarked or fed. All these thanks to the internet, including all the protocols/standards like HTTP, TCP/IP, WWW etc. If you realized (I am pretty sure you are if you reading this), internet has become part of the necessities for most of the people: Email, Instant Messaging, Social Networking, Multimedia and there are hundreds of different usages by using internet. Not only that, there are numerous of methods to get connected to the internet if you think about it: ADSL, WiFi, WiMax, HSDPA, WAP, GPRS, EDGE, 3.5G etc., you name it. But just how many of the internet users concern about their privacy on the line? Many would install anti-virus, internet security suite, but it doesn’t help if you got your own information like Mobile Phone No, Date of Birth, Home Address, all posted on social networking sites, for example Facebook.

PeerBlock

What about the idea of having some companies constantly monitoring your IP address to check whether you downloading any copyrighted materials? Or accessing some websites that actually lead you to suspicious links? And before you ask, YES, most likely it happens to you too. If you doesn’t believe me, read on. But before that, please allow me to introduce you the IP filter/blocker software – PeerBlock.

PeerBlock lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet.  By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries!  They can’t get in to your computer, and your computer won’t try to send them anything either.

To put it short, PeerBlock has those ‘bad’ IP blocked (learn more about IP Blocking) from accessing your internet-connected computer or connecting to them. By this, you are theoretically (of course not 100%, click here to read why) protected your privacy on the line, without silent infiltration to peek on your download/upload packets. Besides that, PeerBlock can help to block IP addresses that actually linked to spyware or ads, make your online session more secure and enjoyable. However, please bear in mind that Peerblock is NOT a total replacement to anti-spyware software, but it can work flawlessly together with them.

Let’s have a look on the software itself (No, it’s a Windows Beta Release version, not a Mac version): 

Main interface is simple enough to understand, where you have several buttons to manipulate the IP blocking mechanism. If you wanted to disable IP blocking, you can always press Disable to stop the blockage. You can also press Allow HTTP if you wanted your application to access the blocked HTTP port by PeerBlock. Please be aware that there are some minor websites will get blocked if you activated p2p mode. You can know it when the PeerBlock icon at the taskbar is flashing when you try to access the website. If you believe that the IP is a trusted one, you can always right click on the IP address (most likely the topmost one),  then go on and allow it for 15mins, 1 hour or permanently. If you choose to allow it permanently, PeerBlock will regenerate the cache list for IP blocking. List manager allows you to check on the modes that you activated (p2p, Advertising, Spyware, Education), as well as viewing the address list for each of the mode.

Settings is not complicated as well. Every options are easy to understand and very customizable according to one’s liking. I would suggest have the Start with Windows turned on, as well as auto-update the software everyday. You can just leave the rest of the options alone if you are not someone who like to customize everything he/she used. 

 

Editor’s Note

Of course internet is not all about IP addresses only, but it does play a big role in the network that connecting all the people around the world. Besides surfing, there are a lot of p2p activities around the world, mainly file sharing activities. While PeerBlock does block those nasty anti-p2p organization IP addresses that tend to peek into your internet packet, but it does not fully protected you from copyright issues when you download copyrighted materials with PeerBlock on. I do not deny that the resourcefulness of p2p network (Bit-torrent, Emule etc.), but the only reason that I introduce PeerBlock simply because I do not like my IP address being monitor by any unauthorized organization/companies without notifying me. So that’s me, how about you?   

You can download PeerBlock here. 

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine