What Is Best Way to Delete All Traces of a Browsing History?

By Ben LeDoux

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Deletion of Internet browsing history can be accomplished at various levels, but one way involves clearing the history of every website visited and web search made by the computer on every browser used. Another way, erasing restore points, leaves zero traces of a user's Internet history inside the computer as the computer will have no reason to recover and save the data. This second process, while slightly drawn out, can assure the user that no one will be able to backtrack through her personal information at a later date.

Deleting from Internet Options

Inside the "Tools" tab of your Internet browser, click on "Internet Options" to find the place from which you can clear the browsing history. Under the "Browsing History" tab, click on "Delete" to enter the box used to wipe out the Internet history. Checking "History and Cookies" and clicking "OK" will clear out every Internet file that has been looked at in the specified browser.

This is the same process you need to follow for every browser used if you want to delete all traces of Web browsing. Although there are ways to recover data cleared in this way, it is an invasive process and would require an administrative access from Windows to be done.

Deleting Restore Points

In order to erase every trace of Internet history from the computer, the restore points must be erased. This process involves going into the "System Tools" inside the "Start" menu and finding the "System Restore" application. The user has the option to turn off System Restore and erase the restore points. Restore points are places where the computer saved all of the information in the computer so that, if a problem arose, the System Restore application could return in time to an earlier day and bring back all of the information with it, Internet history included.

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