Click here to see the index of Craig's columns.

ERASE YOUR INTERNET FOOTPRINTS

Did you know that as you surf the Net, you're leaving a trail? If someone really wanted to know where you'd been, it wouldn't really be that hard for that person to trace your steps. Depending on your circumstances and where you've been, having your path unexpectedly traced could manifest results ranging anywhere between embarrassment and imprisonment.

We've all heard how it's possible for outsiders to trace our steps online over the web but a more realistic concern should be directed towards anyone who may have direct physical access to your computer. More often, it's the unattended computer that's subjected to a physical inspection by family members or someone at the office. To avoid any discomfort, it would be best to have any and all records of your surfing route erased and thus avoid any inquiries directed towards your Internet activities. But deleting your path is easier said than done. As you move from site to site, your Internet browser routinely keeps housekeeping information. Things such as cookies, history files, caches files, ActiveX controls and plug-ins are created, updated and maintained to make your Internet experience a smoother one. Yet each of these mechanisms can be exploited to reveal information about who you are, where you've been and what you did while you were there.

Trying to manually delete these files can cause its own set of problems. Blindly deleting these collections of data can wipe out passwords and other needed information that once lost, could cause you even more grief. Fortunately, Ontrack has come up with Internet Cleanup, a utility that makes sure you properly manage your data and housekeeping files without burning any bridges.

Internet Cleanup will automatically remove tracking data via its own methods, and guidelines you can set up. For example, you can tell Internet Cleanup all the web sites you routinely visit and wish to maintain. Internet Cleanup will generate a list of these sites and avoid destroying any data collected from them. You can also schedule automatic and regular cleanups to occur at browser shutdowns, system shutdowns or startups, or at a specific time.

Once the tracking data is destroyed, Internet Cleanup uses proprietary methods to insure that any snooping, even by someone using data recovery utilities will not be able to resurrect the erased information. Once it's gone, you can rest assured that it will stay that way. In addition to the security, you will reclaim wasted space and improve performance on your hard drive after Internet Cleanup deletes the unwanted information.

Internet Cleanup ($24.95) currently works on Windows PCs and most of the popular browsers such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera and any America Online browser.

Ontrack Data International
(800) 645-3649
www.ontrack.com