Do you remember when you were small, and you invented your own private language so you and your best friend could chat to each other in the playground, and no-one would understand what you were saying? You didn’t, well you missed out big time. Of course, private languages are only for young folk, because we stop needing them when we get older. Or do we?

One of the increasing worries that people face as they use the online world more, is how much of their conversations and interactions remain in the public eye for years after they’ve happened. Anyone who’s ever had an embarrassing Facebook episode knows that. Well the new Scrambls product may help solve that. The software/online hybrid converts your web browser into an encryption engine, which means you can hold private conversations on any website you visit.

The system works via a downloadable plugin which works with all the major web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. There’s even a version for Firefox on Android. Once installed, you can elect to scramble any text by simply hitting a button on the browser tool, at which point it will be unintelligible to anyone else without the key and the plugin installed on their machine.

It’s clever and clean. The only hesitation we have is the thought that maybe forums and comment sections will be unwilling to allow scrambled text to remain on their site through fear of spam or worse. This could make things less than effective. Anyway, if you’re a private kind of person, download it and give it a go.