PrivacyScan User Guide
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- PrivacyScan Setup
- PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Welcome
- PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: File Cleaning
- PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Program Settings
- PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Individual App Settings
- PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Setup Complete
About PrivacyScan
PrivacyScan protects your online and offline privacy by shredding files that can be used to track your web browsing and computer usage. PrivacyScan provides protection by scanning your system for files that could compromise your privacy and offers multiple levels of shredding to securely erase them from your system.
No matter where you go on the web, PrivacyScan is ready to alert you to potential threats, and provides the means to eliminate them easily with an intuitive user interface.
PrivacyScan Setup
The first time you run PrivacyScan, the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant will help guide you through the initial app setup process. You can click the “Cancel” button in the Setup Assistant at any time to exit the Setup Assistant, using the default recommendations for any unconfigured settings.
After answering a few brief questions, PrivacyScan will be configured to match your scan preferences.
PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Welcome
The first PrivacyScan Setup Assistant screen provides basic information about the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant.
Click the “Next” button to continue the setup process.
PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: File Cleaning
The second PrivacyScan Setup Assistant screen offers configuration options for file removal and cleaning for detected privacy threats. By default, PrivacyScan will clean privacy threats by removing them from your system. If you desire more advanced threat removal, you can set PrivacyScan to shred sensitive files by overwriting them with one or more passes.
Enabling the shredding option will significantly increase the time it takes to clean privacy threats present on your system.
By default, PrivacyScan will overwrite files with one pass when shredding is enabled in the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant. Advanced options for file shredding are available in the PrivacyScan Preferences.
Click the “Next” button to continue the setup process.
PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Program Settings
The third PrivacyScan Setup Assistant screen contains configuration options for behavior of the PrivacyScan app itself, including settings for help tips, cleaning animation, and cleaning sound effects.
The PrivacyScan tips, when enabled, provide helpful information for various aspects of the program. The PrivacyScan tips will help guide you through the process to scan your system for privacy threats and then take steps to remove them.
By default, PrivacyScan will display user interface animations while cleaning files. These animations do not affect threat cleaning and removal, and can be disabled at any time.
PrivacyScan provides the option of play a sound effect during the cleaning process. You can preview the sound effect by clicking the speaker button within the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant. Sound effects are disabled by default.
Click the “Next” button to continue the setup process.
PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Individual App Settings
After configuring the settings for the PrivacyScan app itself, the next few Setup Assistant screens will display the configuration options for supported apps detected on your system. The recommended settings are selected by default for each app.
Click the “Next” button to continue the setup process.
PrivacyScan Setup Assistant: Setup Complete
Once you are finished configuring the settings for detected apps on your system, the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant will let you know it is finished with configurations.
Click the “Done” button to save and exit the PrivacyScan Setup Assistant.
PrivacyScan Preferences
The PrivacyScan Preferences screen allows you to change any of the PrivacyScan application settings. You can switch between Standard Delete and Secure Shredding for threat removal, and Secure Shredding offers advanced options for the shredding level. Higher shredding levels significantly increase cleaning time.
You can additionally enable or disable help tips, sound effects, and animations.
Select an app from the drop-down menu to configure the settings for that app. Uncheck the checkbox next to the app name to skip that app when scanning for privacy threats. To skip an individual item for a given app, uncheck that item.
Close the PrivacyScan Preferences window when you are finished changing PrivacyScan settings.
PrivacyScan Automatic App Finder
Every time you run PrivacyScan, it will utilize the Automatic App Finder feature to check for supported apps that were not installed during the initial configuration of PrivacyScan.
PrivacyScan will alert you when it discovers newly installed apps that could contain privacy threats, and will display a Setup Assistant to configure scan settings to detect threats for the new app.
PrivacyScan Main Screen
Once you have completed configuring PrivacyScan with the Setup Assistant, the main PrivacyScan screen will appear. It will show a list of the supported apps detected on your system, along with their location on your system. From here, you can uncheck apps that you do not want to scan. Click the triangle Scan button or click the Clean menu and the click Run Privacy Scan (⌘-R) to scan the selected apps for privacy threats.
Alternatively, you can click the PrivacyScan menu and click Preferences (⌘-,) to change the PrivacyScan settings.
PrivacyScan Scan Results
After clicking the scan button on the main PrivacyScan screen, PrivacyScan will scan the selected apps for privacy threats. Detected threats will be displayed along with their file size.
You can deselect any items that you do not want to clean, then click the Trash Can icon to clean selected threats. The time needed for the cleaning process to complete will vary based on the threats being cleaned as well as the cleaning level. Secure Shredding at any level will take longer than Standard Delete, and the higher levels of Secure Shredding will take more time than the lower levels.
PrivacyScan Threat Cleaning
The status for each item will change as it progresses through the cleaning process.
Items that have been successfully cleaned will be listed as “Cleaned” with the green checkmark status image.
Items that were not able to be cleaned will be listed as “Could not clean” with the red X status image.
Items that are currently in the process of being cleaned will be listed as “Cleaning” with the spinning progress indicator, along with a cleaning progress percentage indicator, when applicable.
Items that have not yet been cleaned will be listed as “Waiting” with the yellow clock status image.
Items that have been skipped for cleaning will be listed as “Skipped” with the blue dash status image.
PrivacyScan: Cookie Cleaning Alert
Cleaning cookie files can reduce tracking and enhance privacy, but may also log you out from websites.
If web browser cookie files are selected for cleaning, PrivacyScan will display a Cookie Cleaning Alert screen, giving you the option to continue with cookie cleaning, or skip cookie cleaning. You can stop this warning message from appearing in the future by checking the “Do not show this message again” checkbox.
If you opt to skip cookie cleaning, any web browser cookie files in the scan results list will be skipped for cleaning for this PrivacyScan cleaning session. Otherwise, web browser cookie files will be processed normally for this PrivacyScan cleaning session.
PrivacyScan: Canceling Cleaning
At any time during the cleaning process, you can click the Cancel button, select “Cancel Cleaning” from the “Clean” menu, or press ⌘-K to cancel the cleaning process. PrivacyScan will complete cleaning for any item currently being cleaned when the cleaning is canceled, and then skip any remaining items afterwards before displaying the Cleaning Results screen.
PrivacyScan: Quitting PrivacyScan
If you attempt to quit PrivacyScan after a scan has been completed but before identified privacy threats have been cleaned, you will be alerted that there are items available to be cleaned, and be given the option to return to the PrivacyScan interface instead of quitting the program.
If you attempt to quit PrivacyScan while cleaning privacy threats, you will be alerted that threat cleaning is in progress, and be given the option to return to the PrivacyScan interface instead of quitting the program.
PrivacyScan: Temporary File Alert
If you quit PrivacyScan in the middle of privacy threat cleaning, the program crashes, or other errors occur that interfere with the PrivacyScan threat cleaning process, temporary files might exist on your system from a previous session of PrivacyScan. The next time you run PrivacyScan, the program will alert you to the presence of these temporary files, and offer you the option to remove them from your system.
If you choose to remove the PrivacyScan temporary files, a screen will appear showing the progress as the temporary files are removed from your system. Once Temporary File cleaning is complete, click the “OK” button to continue on to the normal PrivacyScan user interface.
PrivacyScan Cleaning Results
After PrivacyScan threat cleaning is complete, PrivacyScan will display the final cleaning results screen, listing various statistics from the threat cleaning process. The PrivacyScan Cleaning Results screen will list the final cleaning status, the number of threats cleaned, the number of threats skipped, and the approximate total file size of cleaned threats.
If PrivacyScan is able to clean all selected threats, the final cleaning status will be displayed as “Cleaning Successful.” If some threats were skipped, PrivacyScan will note the number of skipped threats.
If PrivacyScan is able to clean some threats but encounters problems cleaning other threats, the final cleaning status will be displayed as “Cleaning Problems Occurred.” PrivacyScan will note the number of threats that were unable to be cleaned.
If PrivacyScan is unable to clean any selected threats, the final cleaning status will be displayed as “Could Not Clean.” PrivacyScan will note the number of threats that were unable to be cleaned.
If no threats were detected during the scan, PrivacyScan will set the final cleaning status to “System Is Clean.”
When appropriate, PrivacyScan will give the option to share your scan results on Twitter with the “Tweet Scan Results” link.
PrivacyScan Supported Browsers and Apps
PrivacyScan supports the following browsers, apps, and items:
Camino: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Last Session Information, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
Chrome: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
Finder: Recent Items, Recent Folders, and Download Quarantine History.
Firefox: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
Flash Cookies: History, Shared Objects
Flock: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
iCab: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Top Sites, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
OmniWeb: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, and Webpage Icons.
Opera: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
Preview: Recent Items
QuickTime: Recent Items
Safari: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, Last Session Information, Recent Searches, Top Sites, Webpage Icons, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
SeaMonkey: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Form Values, Last Session Information, and Web Storage/DOM Storage.
Shiira: Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Download History, Last Session Information, and Webpage Icons.
PrivacyScan Technical Support
If you encounter any problems with PrivacyScan or require technical support, please contact us by e-mailing us at privacyscan@securemac.com. Additionally, a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PrivacyScan can be found at http://privacyscan.securemac.com/faq.