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Concerned about someone knowing you've visited here?

It's hard to absolutely guarantee that your travels on the net can't be traced at all. The following tips are meant to help hide your tracks once you have visited a website, but even these tips won’t guarantee your browsing will not be traced. Someone with greater computer sophistication may still be able to reconstruct your net travels. But it's a good thing to do to make it more difficult for someone to know where you've been.

To make your Internet usage safer, you might consider using a computer not normally available to someone who may be interested in tracking your online activity. For example, a computer at a public library or at a friend’s home offers more anonymity than a computer in your home.

If you need to cover your tracks, these tips may reduce the chances that your net travels will be traced.

Browsers like Explorer and Netscape are designed to leave traces behind indicating where you've been and what you've been looking at on the net. Here are some simple things you can do to reduce the chances that someone can look through your computer and find out what you've been reading.

In general, you want to erase two different things after you've left this web site and/or any other site that
you don't want traced.

1. One is the "cache" where the computer stores copies of files you've looked at recently with your browser.
   This will be a directory that will have various files in it. You will want to erase all of those files. To do this
   in Navigator 4.0, open the EDIT menu, choose PREFERENCES, choose ADVANCED, then choose CACHE.
   A screen will appear where you can click on the buttons, "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache."
   Click on each of these and then hit "OK." Your cache will now be cleared.
   
   
2. The second thing you need to erase is your History List. This will be a single file containing the addresses
   of the places you've recently visited. In Navigator 4.0, click on the EDIT menu, choose PREFERENCES,
   then choose NAVIGATOR. A "Clear History" button will appear on the screen. Select it, then choose "OK."
   Your history list will now be erased.

How to do this for specific browsers:

Internet Explorer:
Pull down Tools menu,
select Internet Options,
on General page, under Temporary Internet Files, select Delete Files.
under History, select Clear History.

AOL:
Pull down Members menu,
select Preferences,
select WWW icon,
then select Advanced, Purge Cache.

Mozilla Firefox:
Pull down History menu,
select Show All History,
pull down Organise menu,
select Select All,
select Delete or press delete key.

Netscape:
Pull down Edit menu, select Preferences,
select Navigator and choose Clear History,
select Advanced then Cache,
choose Clear Disk Cache.

Older versions of Netscape:
Pull down Options menu,
select Network Options,
select Cache,
choose Clear Disk Cache.

Google
If you have set up the Google toolbar, you may have a search box in it that stores the search terms you have used. If you scroll to the bottom of the list, you can select the Clear history link to delete the list.

Note that these steps may not completely hide your tracks. Many browser types have features that display recently visited sites, particularly if you have typed them into the address bar. The safest way to find information on the internet could be at a local library, a friend's house or at work.

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