Cover Your Tracks
If you would like to keep your visits to Nour’s website confidential, you can cover your tracks by following the steps on this page.
All the information given below is for guidance only and may not completely cover your tracks. Your safest option would be to access the internet from another place such as a friend’s house, your work place, an internet cafe or a local library.
When you visit websites, their addresses are stored in temporary folders on your computer’s hard drive. This information is put together into a log of your internet history, so you can go back and review which sites you have visited.
Your internet browser also saves pieces of information such as images, search terms or words used in search engines and login names. This helps the pages you visit frequently to load faster by loading these files from your hard disk drive instead of having to download the web page in full again. These are saved as ‘cookies’ and they can mark a trail or ‘history’ that reveals what you have been looking at online. Below are instructions on how to minimise the chances of someone finding out that you have visited this website.
First of all, find out which internet browser you are using to access the internet. You can do this by looking at the top bar of the screen where the name of the browser should be displayed. Once you know what browser you are using, go to the relevant instructions below.
1. Click on Safety and select Delete Browsing History.
2. Make sure the History and Cookies options are selected.
3. Click Delete.
1. Click on the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2. In the General page under Browser History, select the Delete button.
3. Either select and delete each section: Temporary internet files; Cookies, History; Forms data and Passwords. Or
4. Select the Delete all button at the bottom to clear everything.
1. Click on Tools.
2. Go to the bottom of the dropdown menu and click on Internet options. This will open a box with the names of several different sections along the top. You will already be in the section called General, which is where you want to be.
3. In the middle of this box is a section called Temporary Internet Files. Click on the button marked Delete files.
4. When the box pops up, tick the Delete all offline content box and then click OK.
5. When your computer finishes deleting your temporary internet files, you will be back in the General Internet Options box.
6. Look at the section below called History. Here you can click on the Clear History button.
7. A dialogue box will ask you if you want to delete all items in your history folder. Click Yes. 8. Click OK to close the Internet Options box.
1. Click on the Tools option in the menu bar.
2. Select Clear Recent History.
3. Select the appropriate time and details.
4. Click on Clear Now.
1. Click on the spanner icon next to the search bar and click on Clear Browsing Data from the Tools menu.
2. Make sure the Clear browsing history and Delete cookies options are selected.
3. Click on Clear Browsing Data to finish.
1. Click on the Tools menu.
2. Select Delete private data.
3. Click the “Details” button.
4. Make sure the Clear history and cookies options are selected.
5. Click “Delete” button.
Resetting Safari clears the history and cookies but also clears the downloads and removes any saved user names and passwords or other AutoFill data and clears Google/Yahoo search entries.
To do this 1. Go to the Safari menu at top left hand screen.
2. Choose and click Reset Safari.
Some new internet browsers have built-in tools that allow you to view internet pages without registering these pages in your history or saving any cookies, so that you do not need to delete the browser history or cookies later. You can access the built-in tools by following these instructions:
Click the Tools menu and select Inprivate browsing.
This will open a new browser window, viewing web pages in this window will not be logged in your computer’s history.
InPrivate Browsing provides protection during the time that you use that browser window.
If you open another browser window, that window will not be protected by InPrivate Browsing.
To end your InPrivate Browsing session, close the browser window.
Click the Tools menu and select Start Private Browsing.
Firefox will ask if you want to start Private browsing.
Click on the Start Private Browsing button and Firefox will restart itself.
While using the Private Browsing window the web pages you visit will not be stored in your computers history.
When you want to exit Private Browsing mode, click on Tools and then click on Stop Private Browsing.
Click the Tools menu and select New incognito window.
This will open a new browser window, viewing web pages in this window will not be logged in your computers history.
Incognito provides protection during the time that you use that browser window.
If you open another browser window, that window will not be protected by incognito.
To end your incognito session, close the browser window.