My mom keeps checking out what sites I visit and I want to clean up my tracks. It’s not that I’m going anywhere I shouldn’t – of course – but I just really want some privacy and just want to be able to wipe my MSIE8 (Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0) browsing history. How do I do that?
You have probably noticed that when you have Internet Explorer 8
running, all you have to do is type “www” into the address
bar, and below the address bar, you’ll start to see a list of
titles of Web pages that have been visited recently on the
computer. You may have also realized that if you share the
computer with other users, this means that others could do the
same thing to see what websites you’ve been visiting.
To delete this data so that others can’t see what websites
you’ve visited, click the “Safety” button at the top of the
Internet Explorer window (this only appears in Internet Explorer
8 and later) and pick the “Delete Browsing History” option:
This will bring up the “Delete Browsing History” dialog box:
If you’re sufficiently paranoid, then to delete all traces
of which websites you’ve visited, first uncheck the
box marked “Preserve Favorites website data”, then check
all the other boxes, then click the “Delete” button at the bottom
to complete the process. This will delete all temporarily stored
data that could indicate to another user what websites you have
visited.
If that’s all you want to do, then that’s how you clear your browsing
history. The End. (Although you may want to read this article
about [link] InPrivate Browsing, which will reduce the need to keep
clearing your browser history — and you may want to glance at the
note at the bottom of this page, “Clearing your browser history is no protection against spyware”.)
However, if you’re not quite that paranoid, then this “super-clean slate”
option may be more trouble than it’s worth. So here is a description
of what each checkbox does and what will happen if you leave it checked
or unchecked. You can also use this section to learn a little more about what
kind of information Internet Explorer stores when you visit a typical
website.
More information about the “Delete Browsing History” options
Preserve Favorites website data:
In Internet Explorer, you can save websites to your list of “Favorites”
for faster access, and access them by clicking the “Favorites” button
at the top left corner of the Internet Explorer window:
So, by default, even when you delete your browsing history, Internet Explorer
will not delete data associated with websites listed under your “Favorites”.
The rationale for this, presumably, is that if you’re deleting your browsing
history, usually that’s so that the next user of the computer can’t find
out what websites you were looking at. However, if the user can find the website listed
under your “Favorites” anyway, then there’s no point in trying to conceal the
fact that you’ve visited that website recently 😉 If you have a website
listed under your “Favorites” but you don’t want people to know that you’ve
visited it, then the first thing you should do is delete it from your “Favorites”!
Temporary Internet files:
As the dialog box explains, these files are locally stored copies of images and
other content that appears on websites that you visit, so that when you re-visit
those websites, the contents will load faster. However, that also means that
if you deleted only your browsing history but didn’t delete your Temporary
Internet files, a user who knows where to look, could find your Temporary Internet
files and surmise what websites you have visited. To prevent this, Internet Explorer
can delete your Temporary Internet files as well.
(Note: “Temporary Internet files” are often referred to as the browser’s
“cache”; this is what they are called in some other Web browsers, like Firefox.)
Cookies:
Some websites use cookies to store information that you have entered on a website,
such as your login information. How this works is a bit complicated and not necessary
to explain here, but the relevant point is that when you clear your browser history,
Internet Explorer offers to clear your cookies for the same reason that it offers
to clear your “Temporary Internet files”: Because otherwise, a user who knows where
to look would be able to find your cookies and figure out what websites you’ve visited.
History:
This is Internet Explorer’s internally stored list of websites that have been visited
by the current user. This is what you actually want to delete.
Form data:
Sometimes if you visit a website and type some data into a form (for example, if you’re
using a website’s “search” feature to search for pages on that website containing a given
word), Internet Explorer will remember what you typed into that form. So for example
if you search for “My Little Pony” on eBay, and then return to the eBay site the next
day and type “My” into the search field, Internet Explorer will offer to complete the
phrase “My Little Pony”. The downside of this, for the purpose of protecting your
privacy, is that the next person using the computer could use Internet Explorer to
go to the eBay site, type in “My”, see the completed phrase “My Little Pony”, and realize
that’s what you (or some other user of the computer) were searching for. To avoid
this possibility, check this box.
Passwords:
On a number of websites where you can log in using a username and password, Internet
Explorer will offer to store the password for you so that you don’t have to re-enter
it the next time you visit the same site. While this can be convenient, the security
risks are obvious if other people are using the same computer. Use this option to
delete any stored passwords.
(NOTE: Many websites such as Facebook now turn off the option to have Internet
Explorer store your password for you when you log in, to reduce the risk of miscreants
stealing passwords from other users by using a computer right after someone else has
used it.)
InPrivate Filtering data:
How “InPrivate Filtering” works and what it is, is too complicated to worry about if
all you want to do right now is clear your browser history. But basically, InPrivate
Filtering works by keeping track of the number of times that the same content has
appeared on different websites, to detect if an advertiser might be trying to build
a profile of your surfing habits. In order for Internet Explorer to keep track of
what it’s seen, it has to keep a record of what content you’ve encountered on
those different websites, and a very advanced user might know where to look
to find the stored data about what websites you’ve visited. So to avoid even this
possibility of someone finding out what websites you’ve visited, check this box
as well.
(NOTE: This is not to be confused with “InPrivate Browsing” discussed [link] here.)
Clearing your browser history is no protection against spyware
Clearing your browser history will prevent other casual users of the same computer
from finding out what websites you’ve visited. However, a user might have
installed spy software on the computer, in order to record every website visited
by other users, and sometimes even to steal the passwords that they’ve typed in
to other websites. (Such programs, in order to maintain “political correctness”,
are usually marketed as tools for parents to monitor their children’s online
activities, however people have also used them to spy on spouses or significant
others — sometimes leading to discoveries of online infidelity.)
If you think it’s likely that someone may have installed spy software on your
machine, then even an anti-spyware program might not detect it. It’s best in that
case to use a different machine for any browsing activities that you don’t want
others to find out about.
Bennett Haselton is a technology and political blogger who also made
a handy page about
how to bypass
the ISU Internet filter in Saudi Arabia.
Not true: “You have probably noticed that when you have Internet Explorer 8 running, all you have to do is type “www” into the address bar, and below the address bar, you’ll start to see a list of titles of Web pages that have been visited recently on the computer.”
How do you delete cache history?
In MSIE 8? Or in a different browser, Dee?
Internet Explorer 8 definitely makes this process very easy, allowing you to remove your browsing history of your choosing in a few quick and easy steps..
I followed the steps above but it still is not deleting the history. I don’t know what to do next. Any ideas?