SAN DIEGO - Anonymizer.com today launched the Anonymizer® Privacy Button, a tool that lets users switch advanced privacy protection ON and OFF with a single click in their Internet Explorer toolbar, effectively making their Web activity invisible to the web sites they visit and other outside parties.

The Anonymizer® Privacy Button defends users from the most prevalent Internet privacy and security threats, from online tracking to malicious code. It's an essential tool for anyone who may reveal sensitive personal information through their Web surfing, such as medical, financial or career information, shopping preferences, credit card transactions, etc. It's also a valuable service for consumers who are concerned about having personal information collected, sold, stolen or shared by Web sites, advertisers, spammers -- even hackers or identity thieves.

To use most web-based privacy services before the launch of the Anonymizer® Privacy Button, Web surfers had to stop normal surfing, log on to a separate Web site, and type in a new URL each time they wanted to surf privately. Now, with a single click, users can switch online privacy protection on or off at any time.

The Anonymizer® Privacy Button works by automatically and transparently routing the user through Anonymizer.com's proxy servers. The encryption-enhanced, protected servers then rewrite Web pages to remove privacy and security threats before serving them to users. Anonymizer hides unique identifiers (such as IP addresses) from Web sites and outside parties, and prevents outside parties from putting malicious files or code on the user's computer. The service also neutralizes cookies, Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, Web Bugs and other potential threats.

Anonymizer.com offers a free and full-service version of the Privacy Button. The free version never expires, and activates basic privacy protection with randomly-limited access to some Web pages. The faster full service version, available for under $50 a year, includes advanced features such as Safe Cookies, URL Encryption and Ad Filtering, with no access limitations. Both versions are compatible with Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher for Windows, and are available for download at www.anonymizer.com.