Sheffield Rape & Sexual Abuse Counselling Service (SRASACS)

Safety on the Internet

As a rule, internet browsers will save certain information as you surf the internet. This includes images from websites visited and words entered into search engines. 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,a friend's house, at college or at work.

If you wish to use your home computer but don’t want anyone to know which sites you have visited on the web, then follow the appropriate instructions below:-

Microsoft Internet Explorer (Most common)

Older versions
Go to 'tools' on the menu bar and click 'internet options'.
Go to the 'History' section in the window and click 'clear history'.
You will be asked 'delete all files in your history folder?' . Click 'ok'.
Go to 'Temporary Internet Files' situated above 'History Folder'. Click 'delete files'.
Tick the box 'delete all offline content' and click 'ok'.

New versions
Go to 'tools' on the menu bar and click 'internet options'.
Then click 'Delete' under Browsing History section.
Then click 'Delete all' at bottom of screen. Then click ok to confirm.

Mozilla Firefox

Go to 'tools' on the menu bar and click 'Clear Private Data'.
Make sure to tick all checkboxes, then click 'Clear private data now' to confirm.

You will need to do this each time you use your computer as each session records each site visited. Please note that this is never 100% wiped off your computer, and it may be obvious to other users that you have cleared the web history.