Browzar, the IE Wrapper That Won’t Go Away

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

One thing is for sure, Mr. Ajaz Ahmed, founder of internet service provider Freeserve, must have some good contacts to drum up so much press for an IE wrapper. I’ve read many stories about Browzar, and how it protects your privacy by not storing cookies, doesn’t save a cache, doesn’t auto-complete when you type in searches say at Google. This article from WindowsITPro, Browsing with Browzar, makes it sound like it’s a great product, when it’s actually just a waste of time.

There’s a new Web browser in town and so far it looks pretty darn good, especially from a privacy perspective. However, there is a caveat, which I’ll discuss in a moment. The new tool, called Browzar, is available free to anyone. The current version is only 264.4KB in size. That’s not a misprint, it’s really that small!

Browzar is billed as “the first ever ‘freedom’ Internet browser” because of the way it works: It doesn’t save a cache, history, cookies, favorites, or other telltale information. When you close Browzar, any information that was temporarily stored is automatically deleted, so you don’t need to remember to do that manually.

I want to know which is it? Does it not save the information or does it delete it, make up your mind, because if Browzar crashes, my bet is the info will still be there, just as it would with IE, because, everybody, it’s just a wrapper that uses Internet Explorer. This is my favorite line from the article,

If your system allows you to, you could just go to the Browzar site, click the download link, and tell the system to open the file and run it.

So, open Internet Explorer, go to browzar.com, click the download link and tell it to run, and what do you get? A little application that uses IE and has PPC search engine results as it’s start page. Oh, and it clears your cache and stuff when it shuts down, something you can easily tell IE to do already. This “app” was created solely to make them money, why else would they make it so you couldn’t change the start page to something other than their crappy results. They are just using Browzar and the privacy hype to get people to download it and click on their search results. Bottom Line.

Here’s how to tell IE to clear your cache on exit.
Go to the Tools menu, and click Internet Options. Click the Advanced tab. In the “Settings” box, scroll down to the section labeled “Security,” and click to check the box next to the “Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed” option. Click OK to finish. This option does not delete cookies, but it will clear your cache of other files when you close your browser. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my cookies cleared, if you do, then you have to relogin to message boards, blogs, etc, every time you go browsing. And you can turn auto-complete off, go to the Internet Explorer Tools menu, click Internet Options, in the Internet Options box, click the Content tab, and click the AutoComplete button. The AutoComplete Settings box will appear. Adjust to however you want, clear as needed.

Here are some more links for more interesting reading on Browzar.
How to change the Browzar start page, using a hex editor.

Michael and I have couple posts, here and here.

A digg about a BBC article, much like the one from WindowsITPro, ‘Adware’ attack on privacy tool Privacy tool, hehe. Some nice comments on the digg article.

Lots of posts at digg about Browzar, some note that they are changing the search results because of complaints and that they are now using Ask.com. Well, that is partially true, they are using the ask.co.uk affiliate program and they STILL get paid for the clicks they send to ask.com. Most of the links are masked, click on one and hold it down and you will see a tracking code in every link, theirs is 41627902. Looks like they are earning 1.5 cents a click, unless they have negotiated a better deal. So, their focus is still to make money, and clear your cache, my advice, Avoid it, they may not contain adware now, but if they are desperate enough to not allow you to even change the start page, you have to ask yourself why, it would be very easy for them to start installing adware, all they have to do is update their webpage, because if you are using their browzar, you are using their start page.