The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

Today is national Safer Internet Day and a time to reflect on how to stay safe in a virtual world. The theme this year is Virtual Lives with the slogan it’s more than a game, it’s your life. Virtual Lives covers both online gaming and social networking.

Insafe is a European network of Awareness, co-funded by the Safer Internet Programme. To get involved with an existing national initiative contact one of the Insafe Awareness Centres or you can register online.

If you would like to take an alternative route, Insafe suggests that you:

• Improve awareness in your local area.
• Arrange a workshop for online safety in your library, school or company.
• Spread the word in the media.
• Become a fan of their Facebook page.
• Post their banner/publish their press release on your website.
• Orchestrate debate for young people and policy-makers.

Or maybe do something as simple as talk to your kids about online safety. Part of being safe online includes thinking about what you share online. Safety is not just protecting yourself from physical harm, but also from reputation harm. Have you reviewed your kids privacy settings at all the social media sites they frequent? Do your kids know that future employers may check their Facebook profile prior to hiring them? Are they aware of Cyber-bullying and the risks and harm it presents? Do they know what malware and phishing is and how to avoid it?

Cocoon is working to make the Internet a safer place and new features will continue to be added. Tell us what you’d like Cocoon to do for you, to make the Internet safer for you and your family?

Thanks to the terrific amount of feedback we’ve been getting (thanks to all the new users!) there have been a number of user-driven changes that have been implemented and more on the way. Updates include:

Toolbar relationships
LastPass and other toolbar add-ons working smoothly with Cocoon. With the thousands of addons available for Firefox, there were bound to be some conflicts, but the developers have been great at responding to feedback and solving those issues as they come up. If you run into one we haven’t heard of, please let us know via the Feedback button.

Google Toolbar warning! Cocoon now recognizes if you have the Google Toolbar installed, and warns you that the Google Toolbar and Cocoon are at cross purposes with each other. While Cocoon wants to protect your privacy and not share your data, the Google Toolbar wants to share your data with Google to help them provide you with services they are offering.

More control for you

Control your privacy

Cocoon is continuing to give you more control over what you share on the web.

With both Cookie and Form-Fill Data management, you control how much information you want to share with the web or even with Cocoon.

Control your data

You can see exactly how many cookies websites are tracking you with and choose to delete cookies from individual websites if you want. But remember, those cookies are not on your computer, they are on your Cocoon server. You can also manage what form fill information you want kept. That, like everything else in Cocoon, is encrypted and safely stored on your Cocoon server.

There are many more features and improvements on the horizon. Thank you for continuing to use Cocoon, spreading the word about us, and providing feedback on what you’d like to see changed or added. It’s all gratefully appreciated!