Skive browse 2: workFriendly

Hot on the heels of Ghostzilla comes another solution to that most horrific of problems – how to spend your office-working day playing on the Internet without receiving a vicious sacking.

This time it's even more trivial to use, if slightly less configurable. workFriendly.net. Upon visiting their site, you will see a place to type text. Simply type in the web address you wish to use - whether NSFW or not - and press the "Is this good for the company?" button.

Up pops what appears to be Microsoft Word. However instead of the document you might be expected to be working on, the document displayed is actually your chosen website. Bits of colourful formatting and pictures are removed to maintain the fraudulent appearance of it being real (i.e. boring) work. All links remain clickable and there is even a cunning little back button to ease the web-surfing.

There is however still the risks of someone coming over to shoulder-surf and realising that in actuality the document you appear to be working on is a nasty description of "Too Hot To Trot 2" or similar. Fear not - workFriendly even has this eventuality covered. Simply move your mouse over a button marked "Boss key" and the website instantly changes to a less-than-fascinating document regarding effective time management. When safety re-emerges, flick it back over the button - now renamed to "Read" - and you're back reading the filth of your choice.

As a bonus, what with it acting as a kind of proxy, the Poorhouse can imagine it might get round certain types of employer-based web filters. For instance, when you browse myspace (to pick a random extremely annoying and crassly NSFW formatted site), the address you actually are at is http://workfriendly.net/browse/Office2003Blue/www.myspace.com - potentially defeating amateur attempts at keeping you on the straight and narrow.