In Brief: Oct. 18, 1999

WORRY-FREE WEB browsing Have you ever hesitated to fill out an online form for fear you would be deluged with junk e-mail for life? Now enonymous.com offers free downloadable software that ranks the privacy policies of 10,000 websites. As soon as you reach an online form on any of the sites, a window pops up with a rating. One star means the site will disclose your personal information without your explicit permission, while four stars mean your privacy is fully protected. One-star sites include ticketmaster.com and gap.com while qvc.com and bestbuy.com earn top honors.

BRAKING CAR THEFTS Steering-wheel locks like the Club are nifty anti-theft devices, except for one problem: a skilled thief can cut through the steering wheel where they are attached, remove the lock and drive off in your BMW. The new Autolock from Lawman Order Corp. ($50, available at the site unbrakeable.com tries to solve this problem by attaching to the brake pedal, which is much harder to sever. Then again, with the steering wheel untethered, a thief might try to drive the car anyway and smash your Beemer into a tree. Oops!

THE MATING GAME With so much game playing in relationships, it's not surprising to find a game on the topic too. So even if the advice makes you flinch ("Let your man do the pursuing in matters of the heart"), you'll still have fun with the clever CD-ROM game Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus ($30; Mattel), based on the best-selling book by John Gray.

My nightmare date thinks he's

a) not worthy of me b) better than me c) already my boyfriend

On my date from hell, she'd be a character from a

a) science-fiction novel b) murder mystery c) self-help book

--By Anita Hamilton