How to Completely Clear Your Internet History
What Websites Leave Behind
Cookies: You've probably heard of these. Cookies are tiny files left on your computer by websites, allowing your computer to identify itself to the website in the future. Some cookies are harmless, allowing you to stay logged in on a particular site, (this is what happens when you check the "remember me" box) while others are less harmless, allowing their parent sites to gather data about what sites you've been to, so that it can target advertising to you, or in some cases even steal your information.
Temp files: When you look at a web page, your computer downloads a number of files. There is the HTML file that makes up the webpage, the image files for all the pictures it contains, and the javascript files that allow it to do nifty things. Depending on your browser's settings, a number of these files will hang around on your computer after you've left the site in question, to make it load faster the next time you go back.
History: In addition to the traces websites leave on your computer, your browser keeps a record of where it's been. This is called the history, and can be useful if you want to find that really cool site you found on Google yesterday and promptly forgot. Of course, there are also times when this record is a bad thing.
Search history: When you search for something on browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, the browser will remember what you typed into the search box, so as to make it easier next time you search. If you don't want the next person who uses the computer to see what you searched for, you'd best get rid of this.
How to Get Rid of It
Depending on what browser you're using, there are slightly different techniques to eliminate data acquired while browsing the net. Here's how on some of the more popular browsers.
Mozilla Firefox: This one's easy. Just go to the tools menu and push "Clear Private Data" (or hit Ctrl + Shift + Del). Up comes a dialog box asking just what you want to get rid of, browsing history, download history, search history, cache, (the temp files I was telling you about) cookies, and authenticated sessions. Select what you want, push the button, and its gone.
Internet Explorer: Pull down the "Tools" menu and hit "Internet Options". The first tab gives you options to clear cookies, temporary files, and history.
Netscape: Hit "Edit" and select "Preferences". Under "Category" in the box that pops up, select "History" and push the button to clear. Select "Privacy and Security", and use the cookie manager to get rid of them. Done!
Remember that deleting cookies and temporary files will make it slower to load frequently visited pages.
Published by TheCaptain
I am a student at Bard College. View profile
- Make Thanksgiving 2007 Family Medical History DayNow you can calculate and print out your family's health history and present it to your doctor to help him make better decisions for your health....
- Black History Month: Made Possible Dr. Carter G. WoodsonThis article provides a description of the origins of Black History Month and briefly discusses this year's theme as outlined by the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History.
- Vacuum Your Computer: PC Cleanup that You Can PerformThis computer maintenance is not only things you should do with files, hard drives and programs, but with the physical parts of your computer such as the tower, keyboard and monitor to keep it healthy for a good long...
- How to Load New Programs on Your ComputerJust bought that great new best selling computer game or software. Here's some things you should do before and after loading it.
Speed Up Your ComputerWhether you have a Windows 98 or Win XP, here are some things you can do that will speed up your computer so it runs better.
- Erasing Your Internet History: How to Get Rid of Temporary Internet Files
- How to Clear the Internet History on Your iPhone or iPod Touch
- How to Clear Your Internet Explorer 8 Browser Cache
- How to Clean Up Unwanted Files on Your Hard Drive
- Remarkable Events in Music History: A 365 Day Timeline
- Don't Know Much About History
- A Brief History of the Early Origins of the Conflict Between Islam and India
- Most of the files on a website you visited are saved locally, in your temp folder.
3 Comments
Post a Commentthanks for easy to understand help
Try Run>%temp%, too, it's a hidden cache. And download a free copy of CC Cleaner. It can be set up to delete almost anything at startup. Look for Anti-Spy - it gets rid of spyware.
You can also go Start>Run>ipconfig /flushdns to flush the dns cache - gets rid of cookies you can't delete with Internet Options. At least with IBM clones and Windows.