Is your PC forcing you out of the closet?

Are you shocked, when you want to log on to www.google.com, but the moment you type www.g , there pops up a list of website addresses beginning with the word gay!!

Does it send shivers down your spine when you are addressing an email to gangaram@hotmail.com and there pops up a list of email addresses like gaybombay@yahoogroups.com.

And even worse.. does your nosey and computer savvy brother get to know about you while searching all the files with .jpg or .gif extensions.. 

Well if it is the case then this is just the article for you !! In the following writeup you shall find a list of precautionary measures that shall allow you to sleep with peace.

STEP I : Disable your browser from storing links in your History Folder.

The History foler contains links to pages you've visited, for quick access to recently viewed pages. With the help of this feature, the address field will have a list box that stores the addresses of all the webpages you have visited, during the period that you have configured the History feature.

To find out the potential danger this feature has in store for you, try out the following.

On your browser (Internet Explorer) click on the History button. You will see that the brower splits into another frame that shows all the pages you have visited in the past (the number of pages depends on the number of days this feature is configured to).

To stop the browser from storing the website addresses into the history folder, perform the following procedure:

1. Open your browser application. (Internet Explorer)

2. Click on "Tools" on the topmost menu.

3. Click on "Internet Options" on the pull down menu. (The last option)

4. This will open another window titled "Internet Properties". The window will have several tabs like "General", "Security", etc,.

5. On the "General" tab you will see three frames, one below the another. The second frame is that of "Temporary Internet Files" which we shall be dealing in step two. The last frame is named "History"

6. In the field next to the caption "Days to keep pages in history" set it to "zero".

7. Also click on the "Clear History" button to clear all the web-addresses existing in the History Folder

You can recheck the effect by clicking on the history button on your brower again.

STEP II : Deleting all offline content.

Your browser application stores many components of the pages you are surfing on the internet into a special folder called "Temporary Internet Files" for quick viewing later.

These could be anything right from images, cookies, and even html pages with the internet addresses for all of these.

To find the consequences of this feature, try out the following.

1) Follow the same procedure as in STEP 1 to reach the "Temporary Internet Files" frame.

Tools > Internet Options >General> Temporary Internet Files

2) There are two buttons in this frame. Click on the "Settings" button. In the window that follows click on "View Files" button. This will open another window that will show you a list of files that your browser has stored for quick viewing later. Disastrous! Ain't it?

It is not possible to disable this feature. The minimum size of this folder cannot go below 1MB (Mega Bytes). (However you are advised to let the settings remain as default, because this folder also temporarily stores downloaded programs until they are fully downloaded) What you can do is periodically remove contents from this folder.

To clear the contents from this folder, simply click on the "Delete Files" button next to the "Settings" button in the Temporary Internet Files frame.

Tools > Internet Options >General> Temporary Internet Files> Delete Files.

This will pop up a small confirmation window asking you whether to delete all files in the folder. You must click on the check box for deleting all offline content and then press the "OK" button.

Recheck!

STEP III: Disabling the Auto Complete Feature.

This feature will disable the most elementary and yet the most powerful weapon your computer might use to push you out of your closet.

The person working on your computer won't even require to be curious about your sexuality or lifestyle, now will he/she have to dig into your PC to do some investigation.

He or she might just be doing their own work and bang.. there it is… www.gaybombay.org appearing in the autocomplete option when he was actually trying to log on to www.google.com. Or there is gaybombay@yahoogroups.com appearing in the autocomplete menu when he was actually trying to address an email to ganesh@hotmail.com

Creepy…. But it is equally simple to disable this feature.

Go back to the Internet Options window as we did in the first two steps and click on the "Content" tab.

Tools> Internet Options> Content

The third frame on this tab page called "Personal Information" has a button called "Auto Complete". Clicking on this button will pop up another window. In this window there is a frame named "Use AutoComplete for" containing three options, namely-- Web addresses, Forms, User names and passwords on forms. Uncheck all these options.

Now click on "Clear Forms" button in the following frame named "Clear AutoComplete history". This will clear all the website addresses and email addresses that are stored into your history. (Relax, this will not delete any contacts from your Outlook Explorer or any other application).

You can also click on the "Clear Passwords" button to clear all the passwords that you have instructed your PC to remember. It is advisable to perform Clear passwords, otherwise anyone will be able to login to your email account or your messenger, even though he or she is not aware of your passwords.

STEP IV: Adding your favorite pages to "My Favorites" folders.

Many a times, you are tempted to add your favorite website.. to your "Favourite" folder. You might often do that by right clicking on a page and selecting "Add to Favorites".

Or alternatively you could be confirming a request from a website that prompts you to "Book Mark" its page.

You are advised NOT to do so,. You can also delete the previous settings as follows.

Simply click on the "Favorites" button on the top of your browser window. This will split the browser frame into two. The left small frame contains all the pages you have added to your favorites. Click on any objectionable folder and simply press the delete button.

After having done all of the above, finish your task to perfection by Emptying your Recycle Bin. You can do this by simply right clicking on the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop and selecting Empty Recycle Bin from the popup menu.

All said and done, there are still many more methods that shall allow you to secure your private content from straight eyes. We shall deal with them in the next article.

Till then, happy surfing.. and do visit this site again.

If you have any further querries, write to gbwebbie@gaybombay.org

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I shall follow this article with more articles on creating user profiles.. Password protecting your private content and more...

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