One order of Tabula Rasa, please.

October 30, 2008 1:44 PM

Help me cover my trail in both Firefox and Explorer, please!

An acquaintance, with whom I have mutual friends, is coming to work on my computer tomorrow (help it run faster, etc). Problem is I don't want him to see where I've been on the internet, specifically blogs of mutual friends who don't want him to know they have blogs. (He's kind of snoopy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he checked to see where I go online.) I've been using both Firefox and Explorer, and want to clear them out so there's no record of sites I've visited. Can I do that, and if so, how?
Thanks in advance.

posted by jildelicious to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Assuming you're using the latest versions:

Firefox: Tools - Clear Private Data - choose what to get rid of
Explorer: Tools - Delete Browsing History - choose again.
posted by I_pity_the_fool at 1:52 PM on October 30, 2008

Make another user on the computer for him (and password protect your account if you haven't do so already) and have him log in as that user. That way he can't see where you've been and can't touch any aspect of your account (including browser histories).
posted by mrbarrett.com at 1:53 PM on October 30, 2008

"Make another user on the computer for him (and password protect your account if you haven't do so already) and have him log in as that user."

This is unlikely to be useful because a) if he's doing anything even remotely interesting he's going to need admin access and b) it's entirely possible that in addition to admin, he'll need access to the specific user account to troubleshoot problems that OP is having.

Mr. T has it right.
posted by toomuchpete at 2:04 PM on October 30, 2008

CCleaner will clear out all the temp files from IE, Firefox, and Chrome. Also gets rid of recent docs, windows temp files. Everything you want to get rid of and more.

Freeware http://www.ccleaner.com
posted by wrnealis at 2:06 PM on October 30, 2008

Go get a copy of Ccleaner.
posted by mandal at 2:08 PM on October 30, 2008

ooh, snappity do dah wrnealis.
posted by mandal at 2:09 PM on October 30, 2008

Nthing CCleaner, definitely.
posted by desjardins at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2008

CCleaner is awesome.

Though weirdly I still see suggested URLs after running it - usually malformed urls or what I assume are search terms. Not sure what to do about those.
posted by Artw at 2:57 PM on October 30, 2008

curiosity_filter: Artw, which browser is that happening for?
posted by mandal at 2:55 AM on November 1, 2008

mandal - That was IE6, turned out it was random stuff from Favourites.
posted by Artw at 10:39 AM on November 19, 2008

IE7, even. On XP.
posted by Artw at 10:39 AM on November 19, 2008