Internet Explorer versions 5 and 6 both allow you to clear your browser history through the Internet Options menu. To get to this menu…
- Click on Tools, located at the very top of the browser window.
- Click on Internet Options.
The Internet Options window will appear on your screen. Click on the General tab (it should actually load up the General tab by default). The General tab of the Internet Options window is divided into three sections. They’re labeled:
- Home Page
- Temporary Internet Files
- History
Clear your IE history
The History section is where you can delete your browser history. Click on the Clear History button, and your browser history will be erased. The websites that you’ve visited with Internet Explorer before pressing this button will no longer show up in IE’s drop down address bar.
Delete IE’s Temporary Internet Files
To supplement clearing your browser history, you may also want to clear out Internet Explorer’s browser cache. IE saves local copies of your recently visited web pages in order to load them faster when you return, and these files are stored in the cache. These cached files are also referred to as your Temporary Internet Files. Deleting your Temporary Internet Files (1) frees up disk space, and (2) erases the files downloaded from your recently visited web pages.
To erase your Temporary Internet Files, click on the Delete Files… button. This button is located in the same Internet Options window, above the Clear History button.
Delete your cookies
Finally, you may also want to delete the cookies that have been stored on your computer by the websites you’ve visited. Cookies are tiny little data files that can be written to and read from the websites. There are many different uses for cookies. Some websites use cookies to track you, some use them to store your personalized preferences, and others use them to keep you “logged in”. If you want to delete your cookies, press the Delete Cookies… button, located immediately to the left of the Delete Files… button, underneath the Temporary Internet Files heading.
If you are a member of one or more websites, and use a username & password to log into those sites, deleting your cookies may log you out of these sites. You will have to re-enter your username and password when you return to each of those sites.
[tags]Internet Explorer,Web Browsers,Cookies[/tags]
