Keep your Web browsing private
Keep your Web browsing private
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Tip As you visit Web sites, your browser writes the URLs into myriad far-flung files on your hard disk -- cache files, cookie files, history files, and the Windows Registry. This may be of no concern to you if you're the only one using your machine, but if you share your PC and you fritter away far too many hours on extremely foolish Web pages, you might want to familiarise yourself with the places that your browser stores the URLs that you gaily type into it. The cache folder. Every browser stores a Web site's images and URL in a temporary folder on your hard disk to speed viewing of the site during your next visit. While it's always a good idea to delete the contents of this folder once a week to prevent hidden file allocation units from eating up empty space on your disk, you may want to delete the files in the cache folder more often -- say, after each Internet session -- so others who use your machine won't know where you've been on the Web. Navigator's Cache folder is inside the Navigator folder. Internet Explorer's Cache folder is inside the Windows Temporary Internet Files folder. Cookie files. Cookies are scripts embedded within a Web page that write unique codes to your hard drive's cookies.txt file. As you browse a site, this cookie file records each click. Cookies are harmless in themselves, but their existence can compromise your privacy. The file in which your browser records cookies also contains URLs of sites that sent you the code. While one Web site can't directly use cookies that another site sent you, it can request the file without your knowledge and record the sites you've visited. Luckily, you can safely delete the cookie file after each Web session. To find Navigator's cookies, use Windows' Find feature to search for the file cookies.txt. Internet Explorer keeps its cookies in a folder called Cookies inside the Windows folder. You can delete this folder after you exit Explorer. History files. Every Web browser has one or more history files. They record every URL you've visited. If you're running Netscape Navigator for Windows 95, delete the netscape.hst file in the main Netscape directory whenever you close down your browser. In Navigator for Windows 3.1, you'll need to edit the netscape.ini file in the Netscape directory. You can use WordPad to do it. Look for the section titled "URL History", then delete all the URLs that are listed. If you're running Microsoft Internet Explorer, look in the Windows\History folder, then drag all the URLs to the Recycle Bin. The Registry. Windows 95's labyrinthine folder system stores system and program settings. The easiest way to ferret out its hidden URLs is to head to the Registry Editor. Select Start--Run and type regedit. In the Registry Editor window, select Edit--Find and then enter URL History. Select and delete the URLs, but not the Default listing. Navigator users should also select and delete the URLs they find in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/ Netscape/Netscape Navigator, opening the version number folder if applicable. Internet Explorer users will find additional URLs in HKEY_USERS/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/ TypedURLs. - Judy Heim | Category: Internet Issue: Jun 1997 Pages: 179 |
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