Every time you visit the site, telltale traces remain on your computer. Almost completely innocent, sometimes useful. And of course there are times when you don’t want someone to be able to see where you’ve been online. Here I will explain just what pages leave your computer, and how they can claim it.
Which Pages to Leave
Cookies: You’ve probably heard. Cookies are tiny files left on your computer by websites, allowing your computer to recognize itself on the website in the future. Some cookies are harmless, allowing you to stay logged in on a certain site (this is done by checking the “remember me” box) while others are less harmless, allowing their parent sites to collect information about the sites you visit. it was possible to ban you, or in some cases even steal your information.
Image Time: When you view a web page, your computer downloads a number of images. HTML is the file that makes up the web, the image files that contain all the pictures, and the image files that allow you to do nifty things. Depending on your browser, a number of these files will be stored on your computer after you leave the site in question, so that it loads faster the next time you return.
History: In addition to leaving traces of websites on your computer, your browser remembers where it has been. This is called history, and it can be useful if you want to find a really cool site that you found on Google yesterday and immediately forgot about. Of course, there are also times when this is bad.
Search history: When you search for something in browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, the browser will remember what you typed in the search box, making it easier to search next time. If you don’t want the other person using the computer to see what you asked for, you might want to remove this.
How to remove
Depending on which browser you use, there are slightly different techniques for removing data acquired while surfing the net. Here’s how in some of the more popular browsers.
Mozilla Firefox: This is easy. Go to the Tools menu and click “Clear Privacy Data” (or hit Ctrl + Shift + Del). Until it comes to a dialog box asking what you want to remove, browse history, search email history, history, cache, (the temps I was telling you about) cookies, authentication sessions. Choose what you want, press the button, and away you go.
Internet Explorer: Pull down the “tools” menu and hit “Internet Options. The first tab gives you options to clear cookies, files temporary, and history.
Netscape: Hit “Edit” and select “Options”. Under “Category” in the box that pops up, select “History” and press the button to clear. Select “Security and Privacy” and use the cookie manager to remove it. Give!
Remember that deleting cookies and temporary files will make frequently visited pages load more slowly.
