SquareX Browser Extension — Stay Private & Anonymous Online

8 min readSep 18, 2023

Privacy & Anonymity has been of utmost importance in the recent decade. With Cyberattacks happening every other day and personal data being sold online, it is of crucial importance for us to remain safe online. Cyber Attacks are on all-time rise and during the third quarter of 2022 itself, approximately 15 million data records were exposed worldwide through data breaches.

Cybercrime costs are expected to rise by 15% over the next five years, reaching a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025. This underscores the urgent need for businesses to strengthen their cybersecurity posture and implement robust security measures to protect their assets and customers from cyber threats. In this article I will Introduce you a game changing Browser Extension which will help you reclaim your privacy and stay safe from cyberattacks.

SquareX

Visit-https://sqrx.com/

SquareX is Startup founded by none other than Mr Vivek Ramachandran who is a pioneer in the Cybersecurity industry with over 20 years of experience in building security products and finding vulnerabilities in security systems. Before SquareX, he founded Pentester Academy, and has also the discovered the infamous Caffe Latte Attack and has authored multiple books and research papers.

SquareX is a Privacy and Security Based Browser Extension that works like a Sandbox Environment. Using it, you can Open Files without downloading them, send and receive emails anonymously and browse anonymously all of which can be disposed with one click. Thus leaving no online trace even in the browser or SquareX’s data centers thus you don’t need to worry about you personal information being exposed.

The Best part is that users can install the SquareX extension on their browsers for free. It doesn’t let your online activities leave a digital footprint helping you stay anonymous, protected, and enjoy a worry-free browsing experience. Compared to Traditional Vpn’s and Incognito, it is a Much faster and Safer solution.

SquareX has raised $6 Million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia, which it will use on R&D engineering and its go-to-market plans. It was also presented recently at The Business Show in Singapore.

SquareX Presented at The Business Show in Singapore, 2023

SquareX has also been featured in various popular magazines and Cybersecurity events including Forbes Magazine, BlackHat, Defcon & Bsides.

Installation

The Installation is pretty simple and hardly takes a minute. Just visit- sqrx.com and click on either of the two options- “Add SquareX to Chrome” OR “Use Web App”

Now, Lets start Exploring all the 3 Features offered by SquareX Browser Extension.

DISPOSABLE BROWSER.

Disposable Browser- Introduction

Disposable Browser- This is my Favourite Feature of SquareX and also of thousands of other users worldwide. It provides High-Speed anonymous browsing from any worldwide location and thus you can Safely open suspicious websites without losing your privacy. To make it clear, no data is retained and the browser session is destroyed and removed from SquareX’s servers immediately.

If your purpose is to use a Sandbox Browser then Compared to Virtual Machines where you need to download a big ISO file and then install the Operating system, you can rather use SquareX’s Disposable browser which is quick and hardly takes a few second to run.

As you can see, I have chosen my location to be Brazil. There are multiple locations I can chose from. The best part is that the browser is smooth and there was no lag. Moreover there will be no unwanted Ads while surfing. Thus it is Anonymous, Secure, Lightweight and Fast.

To confirm that my ip has actually been changed i went to a ip lookup website and indeed it worked!

However When i tried the same thing using Incognito, my real Ip address was available. This shows how useful SquareX browser is and Incognito does not stand a chance against it. Comparing to vpns, I found it much faster and easy to set up and run. This can be a useful feature if you want to browse privately with one click for your specific purpose.Using this Disposable browser I can visit multiple forums without the risk of being tracked or cookies being saved. Traditional products work by blocking access to documents and sites considered potentially suspicious.
In contrast, with a remote browser, I can open anything I like — and even work on it.

After your work is done, you can dispose the browser anytime by clicking on the cancel button as shown below

By default there is a timer which will close the session after 10 mins. You can also extend it. So even if you forget to close your browser, this feature will be at your rescue.

Disposable File Viewer

Disposable File Viewer- Introduction

Disposable File Viewer is another great Feature for opening documents and files without downloading them. Since downloading random files often puts your computers at risk of Malwares and Trojans. Moreover these days there have been increased instance of phishing attacks. Now you can open the phishing link without any worry as it wont even touch your computer’s storage.

Its main features are that it lets you safely view documents from unknown senders, there is an automatic integration with downloaded documents moreover it is Fully private and disposable. This can also be a great tool if you work in Incident Response in the Cybersecurity Industry. Lets start the Disposable File Viewer.

For this demonstration, I have downloaded a Windows exploit from Github.

We can select the file which we want to view and upload it.

As you can see, I am able to view the malicious code without downloading the file which could potentially harm my computer. For this pourpose i had chosen a txt file however in a ideal scenario this can be a exe, msi, powershell file which can severely cause harm.

Moreover I can also edit the text/search for any queries or even download the file after inspection. I think this feature is a great way to stay safe from Cyberattacks and Phishing attempts by fraudsters. Once my work is done, i can click on the dispose button or wait for SquareX to dispose it after the default time of 10 mins.

Disposable Email

Disposable Email- Introduction

Disposable Emails allows you to generate a email address which you can use for any work. Basically if you don’t want to use your actual email address you can use a temporary one generated by SquareX.

It can Keep your primary mailbox clean and secure. It is Temporary, secure and an anonymous email address which can help you eliminate spam, unwanted ads, and malicious cyber threats.

As you can see below, after running it, an email id will be automatically generated for us which we can copy/ regenerate.

We can also edit it and make our own custom email address which is amazing. I created a custom one with my name called zeuscybersec@delieverypotter.com

Now I can use it. Since many websites require you to sign up or put your email address just for using their site, and once you are done, you start getting spammed with promotional emails. Instead you can use a temporary email created by SquareX. Below I have signed up to a newsletter using my temporary email address so that my main email remains clean and promotion free.

Moreover if someone sends me a mail in my newly created email id, i can easily see it. I also got a popup notification which is great.

I messaged myself for this test and it Works!

You can also get creative and use some other websites to send anonymous emails from this email you generated.

Some Early Reviews

MY REVIEW ON — SQUAREX

I think that SquareX is an absolute Game Changer, providing the ultimate level of privacy and security. I really enjoyed using the browser extension and this is one extension that i will keep in my browser. As you can see, my favourite features were Disposable Browser and Disposable File Viewer.

I believe that the product has Potential as we have already seen how easy it to use moreover it can have a large scale usage in literally any company which uses computers since employees often confuse files between a virus and a legitimate file. It is also a great tool for Privacy Oriented people since data theft and privacy violations are at a all time rise. SquareX surely gets my approval.

“Make sure to Comment below and let me know what your favourite feature in SquareX extension was.”