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How To Protect your privacy

If you're worried about protecting your privacy when using the internet or e-mail services please read the following advice. It is difficult to completely hide your internet activity but these suggestions can help.

Setting up a private e-mail address
If you want to send and receive personal e-mail it is best to set up your own e-mail address. You can set up a web-based e-mail address so you can access e-mail from any computer with an internet connection. Free web-based e-mail is available from many companies such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Google Mail

To use web-based e-mail you go to the website that provides your e-mail and log-in with your unique username and password. Remember to keep your password secret.

If someone sends you threatening or harassing e-mail messages, they may be printed and saved as evidence of this abuse.

Where to use the internet
The safest way to use the internet privately is to do it in a safe place. This could be at a local library, a friend's house or at work.

Your website history / cache file
Your computer automatically keeps a history of the web pages you visit and may save graphics, cookies and other files to your computer. This is usually so the next time you visit the same website the pages will download faster.

This means others can find out which websites you have visited by looking through your computer's history or cache file. You can clear your history or empty your cache file in your browser's settings. The following instructions explain how to do this for different browsers you may have:

Internet Explorer: 
Click on the Tools menu (in the row at the top of the browser). 
Select Internet Options from the drop down menu. 
Select the tab labelled 'General'. 
Under the title, 'Temporary Internet Files', click on 'Delete Files'. 
You can also check the box that says delete all offline content. 
Then, under 'History' click on 'Clear History.' 
Then click OK, at the bottom.

Netscape: 
Pull down the 'Edit' menu, select 'Preferences' from the drop down menu. 
Click on 'Navigator' - (this may be a tab at the top or an option in a list on the left). 
Click on the 'Clear History' button.
Then click on 'Advanced' (this may be a tab or an option in a list on the left. If it's in a list, please click on the + sign). 
Then select 'Cache'. Click on 'Clear Disk Cache'.
On older versions of Netscape: Pull down the 'Options' menu. Select 'Network Options', Select 'Cache'. Click on 'Clear Disk Cache'.

AOL:
Take the following steps to clear AOL's browser cache:
Go to 'Start' - 'Programs' - 'AOL' - 'AOL System Information'. 
Click the 'Utilities' tab at the top of the window. 
Click the 'Clear Browser Cache' button. The 'Current Cache Size' will change to 0 KB. 
Now close the AOL System Information window by clicking the 'X' in the top right-hand corner of the window. 
Connect to AOL to see if this has solved the problem. If not, try the following alternative method.
If 'AOL System Information' is not listed in the 'Programs' menu:
Sign on to AOL as normal. 
Go to AOL Keyword: 'Preferences'. 
Click 'Internet Properties (WWW)' - This will open the 'Internet Options' window. 
Click 'Delete Files'… and then click OK to delete your temporary Internet files. 
Now click OK to close the 'Internet Options' window.

Mozilla Firefox:
Click on the Tools menu (in the row at the top of the browser).
Select Options from the drop down menu.
Select the tab labelled 'Cache'.
Click the button marked 'Clear Cache Now'.
Select the tab labelled 'History'.
Click the button marked 'Clear Browsing History Now'