Lyte Byte

Most of us have our own computers but still some might use computers that are shared. If you are concerned about protecting your private details in the browser like browsing history you can set to clear off private details automatically. I have explained how to do it for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Search and Windows recent documents.

Firefox:
Firefox stores details like your browsing history, downloaded files detail etc.
To change the settings of Privacy, Go to Tools -> Options and then click Privacy tab.

You can set the options to remember your browsing history for the specified number of days or to remember the details you enter in forms or to remember what you have downloaded. If you don’t want any of these, you can turn off by not selecting.

You can also set these to remember while you browse and clear it automatically when you close the browser by selecting ‘Always clear my private data when I close Firefox‘.

Now when you use public computer, if you wish to clear private details use the shortcut Ctrl+ Shift + del or Tools -> Clear Private Data.

Internet Explorer:
In Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, if you want to clear private details doing a simple clear history won’t clear all your details. First to manually remove all the details, go to Tools -> Internet Options -> General - > Browsing History -> Delete. This will delete temporary files, history, cookies, saved passwords, and web form information.

Now to set the Internet Explorer not to save anything in history Go to Settings under Browsing History and change ‘Dates to Keep pages in History‘ to ‘0‘.

Most stop here thinking that no longer their private details are stored only to find that its still doing auto complete when they type website names, although there is nothing in the browsing history. To set that Go to Internet Options -> Content -> AutoComplete -> Settings, deselect everything here and Click Ok.

Google Search:
Google Search that you do using Google site’s search box can be cleared using the browsers history but the Google Searches made through Google Toolbar are stored separately. To clear the Google search history, Click ‘Google‘ on the left side of the search box and Click ‘Clear Search History. To permanently not store any search results Go to Google -> Options -> Search -> Deselect Save the search history across browser sessions and click ok.

Windows:
To clear the records of the recent files that you have accessed, Right Click Start and left click Properties, Go to Classic Start Menu and Click Customize. Press the Clear button to remove records of recently accessed documents, programs and websites. If you don’t want to store the recent document, Right Click Start and left click Properties, Uncheck the options under Privacy and Click ok. This is applicable for both Vista and Windows XP.

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