How to Erase Surfing History and cached (and hidden) data from Firefox and Internet Explorer

Clearing browsing History, and removing cached data, cookies and hidden files

Introduction

Youve probably been a few times in a situation where youve been surfing around web sites of various content, which you would like to keep private (personal web sites, or web sites with confidential data, porn :-), etc). Were talking about a scenario where multiple users work on the same computer (user account). So, a question raises how to stop a certain someone who is working on the computer after you to find your web sites in the History? It is pretty easy.

It's not hard to remove the list of sites you've visited for either Internet Explorer and Firefox.  Here are the methods for those:

Clearing the history list, stored files and cookies in Internet Explorer 6

Just select Internet Options from the drop-down Tools menu. A new window opens where you must click on Clear History, but we suggest that you also erase cookies, temporary files, and other stuff like remembered passwords (Content tab) and search history. So after Clear History, you can arbitrarily click on Delete Cookies and Delete Files.

The other advice is to set the number of days the computer keeps pages in history (Days to keep pages in history) to zero. This means that if youre working the afternoon shift, the next morning no one will be able to see pages visited the day before. A problem may appear if someone sits on the computer right after you, but if that happens, you just manually erase all pages (Clear History) and the problem is solved. Other browsers have very similar names for all the aforementioned Internet Explorer functions.

Clearing the Internet history list, cookies and cached files in Firefox

Its similar as Internet Explorer. From the menu choose: Tools -> Options. When the new windows opens check Browsing History and click Ok. From the same windows you can choose to clear also other events as Download History, Cache, Cookies, etc.

Internet Explorer 7, deleting History, cached files and cookies:

- Click Tools on the front of the window, DELETE BROWSING HISTORY, and thenyou will see several buttons: Delete Files, Delete Cookies, Delete Forms, Delete Passwords, and Delete History.

Removing Flash Cookies (LSOs)

Flash Cookies, or Local Shared Objects, are stored on the user system by Macromedia Flash applications. They function a lot like cookies and can be used to store session information or save a game progress. The real problem that many users have with them is that they do not know that they exist because they are not stored in the same directory as the normal browser cookies.

Adobe is providing a website with options to change Flash Cookie behavior. Users can change the storage space - default 100K - or deny access to Flash Cookies to websites that they have already visited.

It’s not a practical solution though. Objection on the other hand is a Firefox add-on that is giving access to the Flash Cookies right in the browser. It is not possible to change settings with the add-on but it provides an easy way to delete selected (or all) Flash Cookies.

For non-Firefox users, I would suggest this control tool on the Adobe website:

Flash Player Settings Manager