Covering Online Tracks

I`ve always been fairly canny with my computer & hidden/erased many of my ballbusting antics on it but I had one embarrassing situation tonight when a friend (unfortunately not female) used it to access the internet and used the address bar (something I just don’t bother with) & noticed on there, one reference to cock & ball torture! I don`t know how it got on there (which was also my hasty explanation at the time) & I`ve tried for hours to get rid of it to no avail. Now everything else I`ve always been able to get rid of but this I can`t find how to, so please guys with all your computer savvy, tell me how to delete stuff from the address bar using XPpro (sp1) & IE6 before everyone I know gets wind of what I`m into? :o

this is what you do... tools - internet options

then delete files, delete cookies, clear history (the clear history should take care of all of that, and your google searches and stuff like that too) :)

same thing works on other windows i think, but the clear history thing doesnt work for the google bars on windows 98 (what i have)

you can also just do what i do, open up two IE windows, the first one you put on a safe site (one that wont raise any suspicion and you can open easily) and the second one you can do all your dirty work in, then it wont save the sites in the adress bar :) but that is only in 98 i dont know about XP

edit:just added in the last part

Please note that clearing history will clear ALL addresses in the history buffer; if you want to keep some or most, there seems to be no way to do this in the current versions of the software I've seen; my browser won't even allow me to cut and paste the whole thing. I can, of course, cut and paste individual lines; since there are about six sites I like to have in the hisory buffer, I can clear it and retype those few sites in less than a minute.

However: this is a thing that any two-bit (or, preferably, thirty-two-bit) programmer could take care of: it should be possible to edit the history file from the address bar, delete any item, and copy all or some of it to another file, etc. Microsoft, of course, isn't bout to listen to anybody, but maybe the folks at Mozilla...?

I had a friend who kept about fifty or a hundred sites in his address bar and used them regularly; for people like me, clearing the history buffer and starting over is fine; for people like him, getting rid of unwanted individual entries would be quite a convenience.

This wont help with your IE6 problem but if u get Opera from www.opera.com then all u have to do is open the history window and select which URL's u want to delete. Personally, I have found Opera far faster and far more user friendly than IE6 and it blocks way more pop ups :)

Thankyou all for your replies on this. :)

It`s weird, I could of sworn I`d hit clear History & that didn`t clear the address bar but it definately worked this time. :confused:

And when I get a moment, I will definately be trying one of the suggested alternatives to IE6, as it does kind of suck.

Cheers. :)

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Originally Posted by play with my plums

Thankyou all for your replies on this. :)

It`s weird, I could of sworn I`d hit clear History & that didn`t clear the address bar but it definately worked this time. :confused:

And when I get a moment, I will definately be trying one of the suggested alternatives to IE6, as it does kind of suck.

Cheers. :)

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So has your friend mentioned it since then?

-Tamakeri

I've been hearing more about FireFox; may have to ditch this IE thing and switch to doin' the Mozilla thang.

Right now I use mozilla, it's great. However I like opera also and it seems to work a little faster.

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Originally Posted by Tamakeri

So has your friend mentioned it since then?

-Tamakeri

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Not to me but I`m sure other friends will hear about it.
Oh well, in future I`ll just have to be more carefull about what can be easily stumbled across by people using my computer.

Mozilla Firefox is a free download. I use it to password protect my bookmarks (favorites) that I don't want everybody to see.

I'm a technical support supervisor at an ISP and I could give you a hundred different alternatives for clearing one's tracks on the internet but the simplest and most redundant way just to not use IE at all (as a few others have suggested). Leave the stupid IE icon on your desktop and if someone must use your PC (I never let anyone touch mine.. my GF has her own) let them use IE becuase you should be using Opera (which I've been using for years) or Firefox (simple and light but it isn't the second coming of christ that everyone is making it out to be). If you want to use IE's rendering engine to avoid compatibility problems, at least use one of the third party versions like Deep Explorer or Crazy Browser (both free) and you will get popup blockers, tabbed browsing etc on top of that.. Internet Explorer: don't use it. Don't Use It. DON'T USE IT!

P.S. Don't forget to disable your Media Player history too.. :) Imagine little billy going to daddy's pc to watch a veggies tales DVD and "what's this??? oooooohhhhh.... Mommy look! that man is kicked!"..

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Originally Posted by tsubushitekure

If you want to use IE's rendering engine to avoid compatibility problems, at least use one of the third party versions like Deep Explorer or Crazy Browser (both free) and you will get popup blockers, tabbed browsing etc on top of that..

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Most web browsers seem to use the Gecko rendering engine, only IE and one or two others use Trident, so I'd say that it is Explorer that is the source of compatibility problems because it isn't using Gecko like almost everybody else. Plus, Explorer is way behind on implementing CSS2 and other modern standards.

How does Microsoft get away with selling people this crap? Or even giving it away for free? I remember way back when I first finally broke down and installed MS-Windows and was surprised to find out that Windows ran much better on DR-DOS than MS-DOS (surely, you did not think that Manuel Alphonse Rodriguez de la Rocha would use a computer that was using MS-DOS!).

Should we start a poll about kicking Bill Gates in the nuts? Being a male with nads of my own, I woul not want to do it, but I'd love to see some of the females here get ahold of a bound and gagged Bill Gates. Um, if kicking Bill Gates in the nuts for creating a monopoly that has fostered tons of crap software on the market is too political, can I uust suggest that nobody should EVER use Microsoft Outlook? Seriously, IE does not stink up the joint as badly as Outlook.

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Originally Posted by Trouble

I'd love to see some of the females here get ahold of a bound and gagged Bill Gates.

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I would be more than happy to wear a Bill Gates mask if that will get me the attention of the feet and knees of the ladies of this board!

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Originally Posted by Trouble

can I uust suggest that nobody should EVER use Microsoft Outlook?

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Microsoft Outlook and IE are the two biggest virus and Trojan magnets, followed by MS Messenger, which is why I switched to Firefox. If anyone is still worried about accidentally leaving some online track somewhere on their computer, a possible option is to create a Windows user profile just for browsing or looking at fetish videos, pictures, etc, and log-off this profile for ordinary computer use. The profile is password protected, so it should hide your usage of the whole computer, not just individual programs, and keep which files are stored private. Less drastic methods include setting history to "0" in Firefox so no URLs are remembered, and setting the cache and cookies to auto-delete in IE and Opera whenever the browser is closed. Don't forget the Clear Forms button, as this is what records Google searches, etc.

David B.
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http://www.ballbustinggoddess.com/Samples/Updates.html

Its a tricky one, but I think all the important stuff and suggestions have already been made.

Something I do, which is only useful if the "potential viewers" are not too computer savvy is to simply make sure all "files" you dont want found are hidden and that folder options is set to "do not show hidden files".

That way, when it is safe to do so, you simply change the option to show hidden files, mess with your "naughty files". Once done, REMEMBER to set back the folder options to "do not show" and your done.........simple and effective against most folks who in general don't know their way around PC's that well.

tsubushitekure, Trouble, David_B & Tommy - all good points, although I do like to show all hidden folders etc, for my own nefarious purpose's! ;) If I could only shake this damn apathy I would get round to installing & running many of the quality non Microsoft products out there right now...

removable hard drives can be a bonus.............:)

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Originally Posted by Tommy

removable hard drives can be a bonus.............:)

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I have a screwdriver. They're ALLLL removable. :D

For the ultimate in security:
Portable Firefox -
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

It's really made to be portable and USB-drive friendly - which really means that very little get's written to the disk (which helps preserve flash memory write lifetime). What it effectively means is that everything is cached in memory and dumped when the browser is closed. If you use it from a USB drive, you can take it away when done and lock the drive to prevent access (or move it around to use on other computers etc). If you use it from your drive, it wont save cache, and you can delete it instantly if you have issues.

Read the info and documentation about how it works and how it differs from the regular Firefox (not much, but for example it has a slightly different way of installing extensions, etc).

J

ps. And for those of you who'd like a portable email client like the above, there's Portable Thunderbird at http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_thunderbird/