IESweep

As Internet Explorer opens web pages, it caches the page file and related files (images, sounds, etc.) in the Temporary Internet Files folder. The information, including the web address for that page, is stored in a file (INDEX.DAT in IE4 and higher, MM256.DAT & MM2048.DAT in IE3) so that Internet Explorer can use that information to reassemble the page from the cache which is quicker than downloading it from the Internet again. Also, information, such as web address and date, is stored in similar files in the History folder allowing Internet Explorer to track your visits and clicks on links to a particular site in its History. The problems that can arise are first, as the .dat files get larger and larger, it takes Internet Explorer longer to read them and can cause the browser to slow down tremendously. There have also been reports, and we have seen this ourselves, of Internet Explorer crashing more often when these files are quite large. The second problem is a privacy issue. Anyone can simply open the .dat files with any plain text viewer and can see every site that you have been to. None of this would be alarming at all except when using the features within Internet Explorer to clear the Temporary Internet Files and History, the .dat files are not emptied! This means not only do they keep growing and growing, but that they store web addresses you have been to for an indefinite time!

Running IESweep periodically will allow you, based on the settings you choose on the Preferences Tab, to clear all of the cached files in the Temporary Internet Files as well as empty the .dat files in that folder as well as the History. Other options are to clear the Typed URLs, which are the web addresses that appear in the address bar in Internet Explorer, the Cookies .dat file, which, if you delete cookies from your system, will cause Explorer to show those cookies in your Temporary Internet Files folder as if they still exist, and your Windows Temp files, these files are used by Windows and various programs during a normal Windows session and can be safely deleted. Ideally, Windows would clean these up by itself, but it doesn't.