Protect your Computer
and Internet Privacy
by: Alex Marias
Is a known fact that every time you open a browser
to view a web
page, order something online, or read your email in a web based
viewer that information is stored on your computer for later use.
Whether you are viewing the weather online, reading sports, catching
up on the latest world news or viewing something a little more
private, all that information is stored in your computer. Windows
operating systems store all this material in what are called
Temporary Internet Files or cache. Web pages may store bits of
information about who you are when you visit web sites in files
called cookies on your computer. Your web browser will store a list
of web sites you've visited and places you've gone in a history file
in your computer. Even if you are not online, programs will store
histories of the files you've opened, played, or viewed.
Generally there might not be any reason to worry
about all these files
in your computer, but what if you sell your computer and all
that information is left for someone else to see. Maybe friends and
relatives visit and use your computer and you dont want everyone to
know what files you are running on your computer. Then you are going
to want to know how to delete these files.
Even if you are not worried about privacy on your
computer, you may
be surprised to realize how much hard drive space all this
information takes up. If you are running out of drive space, you may
want to delete these files.
How can I delete these files?
For Internet Explorer 5 and above, you can follow
these directions
to clear out temporary files and delete cookies.
1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools
2) Click on Internet Options
3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen,
click on Delete
Files
4) You may also want to check the box "Delete
all offline content"
5) Click on OK and wait for the hourglass icon to
stop after it
deletes the temporary internet files
6) You can now click on Delete Cookies and click OK
to delete
cookies that websites have placed on your hard drive.
To clear the Internet History in IE:
1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools
2) Click on Internet Options
3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen,
click on Clear
History
4) Click OK
To clean up other temporary files on your computer
in Windows 98 or
higher:
1) Click Start, Programs (or All Programs),
Accessories, System
Tools, Disk Cleanup
2) Choose the correct drive usually C:
3) Check the boxes in the list and delete the files
This deleting method is only good if you want to
free space, because
normal file deletion only removes a file's directory entry, and
leaves the data contained in the file on your hard drive, which can
be easily recovered by any average computer user using a undelete
utility. If you delete cookies or if you delete history using
conventional methods anyone can recover them! Even after a hard
drive format, files can be recovered using expensive hardware and
software which use forensic latency track analysis algorithms.
There are several good utilities such as
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/
that
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/?v=deletecookies
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/?v=deletehistory
