Posted by Bob on September 22, 1999, at 11:25:09
In reply to Re: dj, do you know the answer to this... Racer?, posted by dj on September 21, 1999, at 23:47:05
I sent Dr. Bob an email to add a few things to the FAQ. These deal with local security ... particularly if other people have access to the computer you use to visit this board.
To make surfing faster, browsers "cache" each page you download. Usually, there is a several megabyte limit to the size of the cache. Nosy people can look at the documents in a browser's cache just like any other web document ... they get stored on your hard drive with very odd (for us) code names that tell the browser what they are, but you can always open them through the file menu, if you know where to look.
To keep snoops from peeking at where you have been, do the following when you are through surfing. Find the Preferences command (for Netscape, its in the Edit menu). In the preferences dialog box, you should see some area called Advanced (in Netscape again) or Cache (within Advanced). Choose this set of preferences. There are two caches for Netscape -- the memory cache and the disk cache. Click on the "Clear Cache" buttons and those files will be removed from sight of anyone but the nosiest, geekiest snooper, armed with special software.
Another thing browsers do to "help" us is they remember where we've been and what links we have followed. This is called the browser's history list. Again, go into the Preferences and look for the Navigation section. Win/Netscape has two types of history you can clear -- the history list itself and the history list available in the location bar (where the page addresses pop up). Clear both of them. Some older browsers (<4.0) may say something like "Expire all links now?" instead ... that's the choice you want.
These methods are kind of like dragging a branch behind you to wipe out your footprints. A determined, hard-nosed, knowledgeable, slimeball snoop can get around these, but this will hide your trail from even fairly savvy users.
Cheers,
Bob
poster:Bob
thread:11754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/11889.html