How to Clear Your Web Browser and Internet History

Internet connection is becoming more and more necessary every year. With the help of the Internet, a person can download or stream multimedia files, work, communicate by voice or video call. If more recently, the presence of a personal computer did not mean that the user had an Internet connection at all, it is now almost impossible to imagine a personal computer without an Internet connection.

Sometimes, working on the Internet requires the user’s privacy. Whether it is a home computer or an office machine. Modern technologies, when working with a computer, considerably increase the user’s comfort, but at the same time, the data becomes more vulnerable. Regular synchronization and saving of passwords in search engine cloud services allows a person to choose to work comfortably or securely.

View Windows Explorer history

Visit history is usually a feature of Windows operating systems. You can see the history even in Explorer. To do this, select “Recent Places “on the left panel of Explorer.

After accessing this section, a window will open a list of recently opened directories and multimedia files. To clear this list, left-click on the free space and select “Clear Recent List”.

Why do we need a history in the browser?

In order to view the pages of the sites, a person needs to install a special program on the computer to convert html code, scripts and graphic files into a readable format.

These programs are called browsers. The most popular of them are: Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Each of these programs records your browsing history and user passwords. In addition, other data is stored, such as the user’s location, semiautomatic input, the user’s IP address and even the MAC address of the network card. All this data is stored in special files called cookies. If necessary, this or these sites may require cookies, thus allowing regular access to the user’s confidential data.

The easiest way to avoid leaving traces on the Internet

One of the most popular browsers today is Google Chrome. And thanks to it, a person can work on the Internet without leaving useless data. To do so, just click on a PCM link and select “Open link incognito”, after which all subsequent actions will leave no cookies or browsing history in the system.

In other areas, this method is still far from complete anonymity. The Tor Browser can be considered a truly anonymous browser, which not only deletes all stored data after closing the program, but also completely masks the user’s IP address.

Today, Tor Browser is the leading browser for confidential work on the Internet. Unfortunately, this application has one major disadvantage, namely low speed.

Selective deletion history

Sometimes long-term use of the browser can cause problems. The site does not display for no apparent reason, the correct password does not fit, etc.

These accidents are sometimes solved by deleting cookies. However, with regular cleaning of the history, it is not at all necessary to delete cookies and saved passwords.

In any browser, when you clear the history, you can check the items to be deleted. At the same time, by deleting data about the resources accessed, a person keeps the passwords saved on social networks, web wallets and other sites.

4 ways to clear your browsing history

Each browser keeps a record of your online activity, including the sites you visited and the date of your last visit. While your history can be a useful tool for finding websites you’ve visited in the past, there are also good reasons to clear your history, such as when you want to keep your browsing private. To clear your browsing history in Safari, Chrome or Firefox or on your iOS device, please follow the steps below

Delete history in Google Chrome

  • Open Chrome.
  • Select the Chrome menu from the menu bar. 
  • Choose Clear Navigation Data from the drop-down menu. A popup window will appear. 
  • Choose the time interval for which you want to delete the history. By default, Chrome will delete the navigation data for the last hour. 
  • Check the boxes where it says Clear browsing history and Clear download history. Check the checkboxes of the other items you would like to delete. 
  • Confirm by clicking Clear Browsing Data at the bottom of the popup window. 

Clear history in Mozilla Firefox

  • Open Firefox. 
  • Select the History menu.
  • Click Clear Recent History from the drop-down menu. A popup window will appear. 
  • Select the length of time you want to delete the history for. By default, Firefox will delete your entire history. 
  • Check the boxes where it says Browsing and Downloading History and Search and Form History. Check the boxes for the other items you’d like to delete. 
  • Confirm by clicking Clear Now at the bottom of the popup window. 

Delete history in Safari

  • Open Safari. 
  • Select the History menu from the menu bar. 
  • Select Clear History from the drop-down menu. 
  • Click Clear to confirm. 

Delete History in Safari for iOS

  • Open your settings. Click the Settings icon on your Home screen. 
  • Select Safari from the list of options in the left column. 
  • Click the Clear History option. 
  • Confirm by clicking Clear in the confirmation window. 

Tips

Some browsers such as Chrome and Safari allow you to browse in private mode without leaving a trace of your history. Enable these modes to avoid having to delete your history afterwards.

Select a short time interval if you just want to erase recent activities.

If you are concerned about privacy, you can erase other personal data such as cookies and form data that is stored.

Warnings

History deletion cannot be undone. Once deleted, the data no longer exists.

Deleting the history will delete the browsing data, but other users may notice the blank in your browsing history. Keep this in mind when deleting your data.