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

As we are finalizing the Cocoon Firefox plug-in, we continue talking to our potential customers.

To date we have interviewed everyone from casual Internet users to small and medium sized businesses, listening and learning how Cocoon can best be of help to all.

“The next level of Internet security” is a concept that seems to really resonate with people of all types. A safe, virus- free browsing experience that prevents executable code from running on your computer might be a hard concept for some people to grasp, but the idea of being able to browse the Internet carefree appeals to many.

Among individuals, those that have “been burned before” comprise the group most interested in Cocoon. They’ve had malware slowing down their computers, adware messing with their privacy, and fake antivirus software holding their machines hostage.

Another big group is “concerned parents” — the mom who’s kids fearlessly explore the Web on her machine; the dad concerned about his elderly parents with out-of-date security software and ever so vulnerable to malware waiting to attack  unsuspecting users.

While it could be expected that consumers would find comfort from Cocoon’s extra level of protection, would medium sized businesses with IT departments see the value in it? Turns out they do. Why? Because they have three big concerns:

·       Infection of individual machines and/or systems

·       Inability to carry on business due to damaged machines and/or systems

·       Security of company information

Business of all sizes have the same concerns that I have at home – it’s just more costly for them when something goes wrong. And it does go wrong. The businesses we interviewed (ranging from 6 computers to 300 computers) all had suffered malware infected machines that slowed productivity and threatened the security of company information.

It’s clear the time is right for Cocoon’s new level of Internet security. As our engineering team works to finish the Cocoon Firefox plug-in for beta release, all of us watching are on the edge of our seats waiting to share this with the world.

On our website and blog we talk about Cocoon protecting you from drive-by malware infections, but what exactly are they?  In the not too distant past to get a computer virus, you had to do something, open an email from someone you didn’t know, download an executable file from a suspicious website, etc. Viruses didn’t just happen because you didn’t wash your hands or someone forgot to cough into their elbow – it took some action by you to infect your computer. Back in those good old days the annoyed look you got from the IT guy was because you likely had done something stupid. Not so anymore.

Now you can get a virus, malware or spyware from visiting and just viewing a website as innocent as msnbc or facebook (not to defame them – my point is it can happen anywhere).

The malware is not the fault of the website itself, but instead can happen for a number of reasons. One, a web server hosting this content hasn’t been updated with newer software or patches – Google reports 38% of common but older versions had outdated software. Or two, the advertising on the website may be delivering malware infections – and these infected ads may be provided via a sales syndication network, so the website doesn’t even know who the ad owner is.

Yes there are still stupid things we can do to get infected – like clicking on a suspicious popup ad or opening every attachment that is emailed to you. But just avoiding the obvious will not keep you safe. So what can you do? Well, Cocoon will protect you once it’s available, but we’ll also talk about other options in our next post.

As I talk about Cocoon with friends and family, I find myself answering the same questions fairly often, so I thought I’d answer them here, too.

“Who is Cocoon for?”

I could say anyone or everyone, but that doesn’t really get to their point. So instead I say: “Cocoon is for people or businesses that want to be able to use the Internet without exposing their computers to viruses or spyware, and they want to protect their online privacy.”

“Is it for techies or the average user?”

Again “both” is the simple answer, but a better answer is “The average user appreciates Cocoon because it provides protection and privacy without altering how you use the Internet. But techies appreciate it because they recognize how simply (maybe even elegantly) such a powerful service is being provided, and what cool features are coming along with it.”

I’ve finally come to realize why some people seem to have a hard time wrapping their minds around Cocoon. What we are creating is a new paradigm.

Just because you are buying something online doesn’t mean you need to provide your email address or other private information. Using the Internet doesn’t mean you have to expose yourself to viruses, malware or spyware.

What is amazing is how comfortable people have become with the inadequacies of the Internet as we now experience it. What’s exciting is exposing people to a whole new experience. Cocoon is coming soon!

CocoonApp will go live before the end of October! It will be a limited availability launch as we ramp up.  If you want to get on the list, stay tuned for our invitation site link to be posted here.

Meanwhile, ongoing testing of the rapid development is going great. Sure we’re learning and changing things, but that’s the point. Usability is improving daily, and feedback shows people want to browse with privacy effortlessly, while avoiding spyware, malware, and viruses. What’s fun is to see people recognize how complacent we’ve all been with the status quo. They now expect browsing should be private and virus-free. Imagine that . . . coming by the end of October.

In two hours I’ll find out when CocoonApp launches its limited beta trials. It’s hard to imagine and impossible to explain how much needs to get done for this to happen.

What is CocoonApp? Imagine an application that would let you browse the web with nothing touching your hard drive. No malware or spyware to ever bog down your machine again, privacy from websites that want to spam you, or anyone you share your computer with. Why? Because with CocoonApp, you’re not browsing the net on your computer, you’re doing it on our servers. We just show it to you on your computer. You interact with the web the same way, but with the peace of mind of knowing you are protected. Hence one of the tag lines we’ve considered: “Peace of mind and the internet together at last”. Well, when we go live it will be “at last”… I’ll let you know.