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Temporary Internet Files
by: Mil Incorporated
Summary: Temporary Internet Files explained.
There is also information how to delete temporary internet files and
corresponding index.dat files.
What are Temporary Internet Files?
Temporary Internet Files are, in fact, the
cache of the Internet Explorer. This means that when you load a web
page with Internet Explorer, it is saved on your computer so that if
you later decide to open the same page again, it will open a lot
faster. Temporary Internet Files improve speed of web browsing and
also make possible so called offline browsing, which gives you the
ability to open the web pages from cache even when you are not
connected to the Internet.
Despite all these positive things about
Temporary Internet Files, they have one big drawback: they
compromise your privacy. Everyone with access to your computer can
look into your Temporary Internet Files folder (location of this
folder is discussed here) and see the sites that you have visited in
the past. You can manually delete the contents of Temporary Internet
Files folder (explained here) but this will not erase all traces of
the pages because a special file called Index.dat is placed in this
folder and it will still preserve the names and even the dates of
your first visits to many pages.
Where is located Temporary Internet Files
folder?
The location of the Temporary Internet Files
folder depends on the version of Windows and whether or not you are
using user profiles.
If you have Windows XP or Windows 2000 then
Temporary Internet Files are in this location (note that on your PC
they can be on other drive instead of drive C):
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
If you have Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows NT
or Windows 95 then index.dat files are in these locations:
C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
C:\Windows\Profiles\\Temporary Internet Files\
Note that on your computer the Windows
directory may not be C:\Windows but some other directory. If you
don't have Profiles directory in you Windows directory don't worry -
this just means that you are not using user profiles.
How to delete Temporary Internet Files?
To delete Temporary Internet Files manually, do
the following things:
1. Start Internet Explorer and click Tools
menu, then select Internet Options... from this menu. This will open
the Internet Options window.
2. Click General tab and then find in the
section Temporary Internet Files the button Delete Files... and
click it. A new dialog box opens.
3. In the Delete Files dialog box, click to
select the Delete all offline content check box if you want to
delete all Web page content that you have made available offline.
4. Click OK to delete the files. Note that if
you are doing this for the first time, the deleting can take a large
amount of time, so be patient.
WARNING! This will most probably delete all
visible items in the Temporary Internet Files folder (except
cookies) but a number of invisible traces may remain in the
index.dat files. The only way to be sure that you are getting rid of
all traces for good is the usage of specialized privacy protection
program like Mil Shield - a powerful privacy protection program that
was designed specifically to clean and shred the Temporary Internet
Files. Additional benefit is the ability to preserve the tracks from
some chosen by you sites (selective cleaning), which makes your
browsing more comfortable and safe (it is rather suspicious to
always have empty history, cookies and Temporary Internet Files - it
is better to leave some tracks from "innocent" sites). Mil Shield
also cleans all other tracks as index.dat files, cookies, history,
cache, AutoComplete records, UserData records, history of recently
used folders and documents and many more.
More information about the article:
http://www.milincorporated.com/a-temporary-internet-files.html
About The Author
Mil Incorporated was founded with an ambitious
objective to be a trusted software partner for individuals and
enterprises around the world. Mil Incorporated provides software
security and privacy solutions that incorporate state of the art
technology, security expertise, and substantial resources.
Web address: http://www.milincorporated.com/