How to Completely Clear Your Internet History

Every time you visit a website, telltale traces remain on your computer. Generally, this is totally harmless, but occasionally it is a good idea to get rid of them. And, of course, there are occasions on which you don’t want anyone to be able to see where you’ve been online. Here I’ll explain just what websites leave on your computer, and how to get rid of it.

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.