Protect your Computer and Internet Privacy
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
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/?v=deletehistory
About the Author
Alexandru Marias is an IT student mentaining websites like http://www.amicutilities.com , http://www.downloadsplaza.com ,
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