Section 10.6. History: Erasing Your Tracks: All Versions

10.6. History: Erasing Your Tracks: All Versions

You'd be surprised and shocked to see the kinds of information Internet Explorer stores about you. Behind the scenes, it logs every Web site you ever visit. It stashes your cookies, of course, plus passwords and information you type into Web forms (your name and address, for example). Your hard drive also keeps cache filesgraphics and text files that make up the Web pages themselves , stored on your hard drive to speed up their reappearance if you visit those sites again.

Now, some people find it creepy that Internet Explorer maintains a complete list of every Web site they've seen recently, right there in plain view of any family member or co-worker who wanders by.

Fortunately, you can delete any or all of these tracks easily enough.

To delete just one particularly incriminating History listing, right-click it in the History list (page 379). From the shortcut menu, choose Delete. You've just rewritten History.
You can also delete any other organizer icon in the History list: one of the little Web-site folders, or even one of the calendar folders like "Three Weeks Ago."
To erase the entire History menu, choose Tools Delete Browsing History, and then click "Delete history."

The same dialog box (Figure 10-10) offers individual buttons for deleting the other kinds of tracksthe passwords, cache files, and so on. Or, if you really want a clean slate, you can click Delete All to purge all of it at once.

Figure 10-10. The Delete Browsing History dialog box lets you delete traces of your Internet activities, including your browsing history, cookies, temporary files, passwords, and forms data. Keep in mind that when you delete some of this, it may make Web browsing less convenient . Delete your cookies, for example, and you'll have to enter your name and password again every time you go to a site like Amazon .

This is good information to know; after all, you might be nominated to the Supreme Court some day.