When VIPRE Privacy Shield (previously VIPRE Identity Shield) runs, it will open in Configuration Wizard mode. This mode presents a sequence of dialog boxes on the program's right side. These dialog boxes will lead you through a series of well-defined steps to help you get familiar with VIPRE Privacy Shield's features and our recommendations.

Find the below to see VIPRE recommended settings for each feature.

Login Credentials

Login Credentials is the first section of the configuration wizard. The Login Credentials screen shows usernames and passwords that VIPRE finds stored in your web browsers.

VIPRE Recommendations for Login Credentials

1. To run a scan select the Scan button.
2. After the scan has finished you will see a list of the usernames and passwords that VIPRE found. There are three options for you once you have this list:
   • Delete: The delete option will remove the usernames and passwords from your browser's memory. If you choose this option, the web browser will not automatically enter your username and password into the login fields on websites.
   • Move to Vault: When you move your login credentials to the Vault, VIPRE will remove the usernames and passwords from your browser's memory and store them in an encrypted vault. If you choose this option, the web browser will not automatically enter your username and password into the login fields on websites. You will need to open the Vault to copy your password to the clipboard so you can paste it into a web page's password field.  
   • Do nothing with the list: If you prefer not to delete or move your credentials to the Vault, then you can leave your credentials in the browser's memory. This provides the convenience of the browser auto-populating your credentials into the web page's login fields but is less secure. 

The Vault is a very powerful tool that enables you to encrypt and decrypt your personal passwords with a single click. Unlike many password managers, VIPRE Privacy Shield's Vault stores credentials locally on your PC instead of in the cloud where it can be breached. Your passwords will be encrypted and invisible to anyone. They are easily retrievable using “Copy Password to Clipboard” or “Export data to .csv format”.

Personal Information

The Personal Information screen displays a series of profiles for information that has been detected within your web browser's memory. Every time personal information is entered into your web browser, it might be stored for future use. Information pertaining to a person's ID (such as credit card numbers, addresses, or phone numbers), is considered private in nature and is gathered here for your review. VIPRE Privacy Shield combines people by name into a single profile.

VIPRE Recommendations for Personal Information

1. Select Scan to search for personal profiles stored in your web browsers.
   • VIPRE will display the profiles that it found on the computer.
2. Select any of the profiles to see what personal information was found. 
3. Delete the profile to remove personal information from the computer. 

Browsing Tracks

On the Browsing Tracks screen, you can review the number of Browsing Records (website histories) and Tracking Records (website cookies) discovered for each web browser on your PC. VIPRE Privacy Shield provides a quick-reference meter that is colored green (low), yellow (medium), or red (high), based on the number of records found per browser.

VIPRE Recommendations for Browsing Tracks

1. Select Scan to search for Browsing and Tracking Records stored in your web browsers.
   • The scan can take a few minutes to complete.
2. Select View Records to review your browsing tracks or select Delete to delete the browsing tracks. 

Documents

The Document Vault is a powerful tool that lets you encrypt and decrypt your personal documents with a single click. You can store virtually any files or folders on your PC within the Vault, and they will be encrypted and invisible to anyone but you.

VIPRE Recommendations for Documents

1. Select Scan to search for documents on your computer that may contain personal information.  To expand the search to include documents stored in any location on your computer, first, click the Deep Scan checkbox.
2. After the scan has finished you will see a list of the documents that VIPRE found. There are three options for you once you have this list:
   • Ignore: The ignore option will leave the documents in their current locations.
   • Move to Vault: When you move your documents to the Vault, VIPRE will remove them from their current locations and store them in an encrypted vault. 
3. If you move your documents to the Vault, you will have the following options:
   • Lock: This will log you off the Vault, you will require to enter your password again to access the vault again.
   • Encrypt files: This will allow you to manually select files to be added and encrypted to the Vault.
   • Encrypt folders: This will allow you to manually select a folder to be added and encrypted to the Vault.
   • Decrypt files: This will allow you to manually select files from the Vault to be Decrypted and restored to their original folder or to a folder of your choice.
   • Change Category: This allows you to change the category name. Categories are useful to organize files and folders by type within your document vault.
     • Tip: You can create categories like “Tax, Finance, Pictures” and move your files/folders to it.
   • Import/Export vault files: You can export your vault into a compressed (*zip) format and share it on another computer running VIPRE Privacy Shield.

Tracking Blocker

VIPRE Privacy offers tools to block your webcam, your microphone, advertisements on websites, and tracking cookies. 

The first time you run VIPRE Privacy Shield, it will recommend you install the browser extension for each of your browsers. Follow the on-screen steps to install. If you prefer to install the extensions at a later time, just click the switch next to Not Installed, and VIPRE will show you how to install the extension.

Once the extension is installed for each of your web browsers, Privacy Shield shows the statistics for how many tracking attempts have been blocked across all the browsers on your PC.

You can click the Scramble Now button to immediately scramble your digital fingerprint, so that tracking websites won't know who you are. This happens automatically every time you start your web browser with the extension installed.

Dark Web

The dark web is a part of the internet that is made up of sites that you can’t access through traditional search engines such as Google, Safari, or Firefox. Most of the dark web is dedicated to the buying and selling of stolen financial and personal information. If your information ends up on dark websites — for instance, after a data breach — an identity thief could gain access to it.

VIPRE employs a Dark-Web scanning algorithm that searches for traces of your email account or password in breached databases that were exposed on the dark web.

Note: There is no way for any company to search the entire dark web. A scan can uncover when your data has been exposed. But it can’t find every instance of this.

To see if your email address has been part of a data breach and exposed on the dark web:

1. Enter your email address into the search field
2. Select Search
   • VIPRE will begin searching your email address. If breaches are identified, change your passwords to a secure password that you have not used in the past.