CLEAR YOUR TRACKS
To Clear Tracks simply means to remove all logs or trail of breadcrumbs left behind during the course of surfing the Internet or when working with a system. It has become so pertinent that we just have to do what is needed to be done by clearing our tracks from any device or peripheral whenever we are done with it mostly when working online (on the internet). This act of clearing tracks is for our personal data/information security, preventing sensitive information from entering the wrong hands (those who may have bad intensions).
Clearing your tracks also means to do things that hide your activities from other people, so that they cannot find out what you have been doing. This could be for a negative or positive reasons as the case may be.
There are different ways you can apply in clearing your tracks. I will walk you through various ways to achieving this.
Cover your Internet tracks. If you have surfed this and/or other websites you would have left a trail that allows others to see which websites you have visited or even Open any of your online accounts (using browser saved password history list).
BASIC: CLEAR YOUR BROWSER TRACKS
Following these steps should clear your browser’s history and cache files; however, this does not guarantee that information will not be left on your browser. Please exercise caution with any device that can track your online activities — this includes your phone.
- Tap on the three small dots at the top right corner of your browser. (Alterately, click “History” in your top menu, and then “Show Full History”.)
- From the list that appears select History. At this point you can click and delete individual websites that appear in your search history. You also have the option to select Clear Browsing Data on the left hand side to remove your browsing history over a specific frame of time.
- After selecting Clear Browsing Data, you will be given a Basic and Advanced option. You can click on the Basic tab, choose the “Last Hour” time range and place a check mark next to all three boxes (Browsing History, Cookies and other site data, and Cached images and files). We recommend avoiding clearing all history as this may appear suspicious. Ideally you want to delete your browsing data from the past hour or day to cover your recent tracks.
- Click on Clear Data and close the window.
- Tap on the Tools icon in the menu section, at the top right hand corner of the browser.
- Click on Internet Options.
- In the General tab under Internet Options, click on Delete… in the Browsing History section. You will be directed to a new tab.
- Under the Delete Browsing History tab, click on History. This will clear the pages you’ve recently visited. You will also have the option of clearing Temporary Internet files and website files and Cookies and website data. We recommend selecting all three boxes.
- Select the Delete button at the very end for changes to take effect. Press the OK button as a last step to close the Internet Options box.
- From the Safari menu at the top of the computer, click Clear History.
- You will be prompted to choose between The Last Hour, Today, Today & Yesterday, or All History. Again, we recommend avoiding clearing all history as this may appear suspicious. Ideally you want to delete your browsing data from the past hour or day to cover your recent tracks.
- Click Clear History after selecting the type of history you’d like to delete. At this point, you are done.
Clear your entire browsing history:
- Go to the History panel on your home screen.
- Tap on Clear browsing history at the bottom of the History panel.
- Tap OK to confirm.
Clear specific items from your browser:
- Tap the menu button (either below the screen on some devices or at the top-right corner of the browser) and select Settings (you may need to tap More first).
- Tap Clear private data.
- Put a check mark next to the items you want to clear and then tap Clear data.
Meet Ali!
Discover how her location data is collected and used and also the mitigations. Discover Ali with this link https://www.clearyourtracks.org. when you are done Meeting Ali, do come back and tell us about your experience by commenting in the comment section below.
Hello!
I believe you learnt something new from Ali and I guess you have started applying some of the mitigations on how to clear your tracks.
