Online Safety
If you’re worried about someone knowing you’ve visited this website, please read the following safety information.
Please note, the information below may not completely cover your tracks. If you want to be completely sure of not being tracked online, the safest way would be to access the internet at a local library, school, college or at a friend’s house.
Many browsers have a ‘Private Browsing’ option, that won’t keep a record of your browsing activity. If you can, turn this on each time before you start using the internet.
Websites that you have visited are stored on your computer as ‘temporary internet files’ and ‘cookies’. You can clear some evidence of sites you have visited/searches you’ve done by clearing your web browser’s history or by anonymous browsing. Note: this won’t always remove all records from your computer’s memory and your partner would not have to be a computer expert to find the remaining records.
Consider: If clearing your browser’s history isn’t something you do regularly, DON’T do it, as this might arouse suspicion.
Clearing your Browser History
Search for “Clear Browser History and cache” to get the best advice on clearing your history for the particular browser you are using. Some handy instructions below.
Internet Explorer (PC): Pull down the Tools menu and select Internet Options. Click on the ‘Delete Files’ and ‘Clear History’ buttons on the general page.
Firefox (PC and Mac): Pull down Tools menu and select “Clear Private Data”. Tick “Browsing History”, “Download History”, “Saved Form and Search History”, “Cache” and “Authenticated Sessions; then click on “Clear Private Data Now”.
AOL: Pull down Members menu, select Preferences. Click on WWW icon. Then select Advanced, and click ‘Purge Cache’.
Safari (Mac and PC): Pull down the Safari menu, select ‘Reset Safari’, click on ‘Reset’. (Safari also has a ‘Private Browsing’ option which you can choose before you browse and turn off afterwards. To use this, pull down the Safari menu, select ‘Private Browsing’, and click OK when you see a confirmation message. To turn private browsing off, choose it from the menu again, and close any windows you’ve used to view private information.)
Location Tracking
You can turn off location tracking for your device, though this will prevent some apps from working (e.g. maps or finding stolen phones). Here are guides on how to do this on Apple or Android. Apple also has a checklist to manage location sharing which will provide further guidance.
You can also turn off locations on your photos. If you take a photo with a mobile device, it may add a geo-tag to the photo that says where the photo was taken. You can follow the steps in the links above for your Camera app to remove location services from working with photos.