National Office

Cover Your Tracks

Be careful! Cover your Internet tracks. If you are experiencing intimate partner abuse and you have surfed this and/or other websites with similar content, you will have left a trail of evidence behind for others to find.

Following these steps should clear your browser's history and cache files; this does not guarantee, however, that information will not be left on your browser.

Clearing history & cache files in:

Internet Explorer:

  1. If you are using Internet Explorer 6 or an older version, click on Tools in the menu.
  2. Click on Internet Options.
  3. In the General tab under Temporary Internet Files, Click on Delete Files. This will clear your browser's cache.
  4. Under History, Click on Clear History. This will clear the pages you've recently visited.
  5. If you are using Internet Explorer 7, click on Tools.
  6. In the General tab under Internet Options, click Delete under Browsing History and that will delete everything from the new dialogue window that appears.

Firefox

  1. Open the Firefox browser and navigate to the Tools menu (for Windows users) or the Firefox menu (for Mac users)
  2. Click the Tools drop down menu and then click Clear Private Data.
  3. If you are using a newer version of Firefox, you can click Tools drop down menu and then click Clear Recent History.
  4. Press the “OK” or “Clear Now” button (Windows) or simply close the preferences box (Mac). Your cache will now be clear.

Safari

  1. From the Safari menu, click Empty Cache.
  2. When asked “Are you sure you want to empty the cache?” click Empty.
  3. From the Safari menu, click Preferences.
  4. From the Security dialog box, click Bookmarks.
  5. Click Show Cookies.
  6. From the Cookie dialog box, click to choose a cookie, and click Remove. Alternatively, if you want to delete all cookies, click Remove All.
  7. Click Done.

Netscape:

  1. In the menu, click on Edit.
  2. Click on Preferences.
  3. In the left-hand column, Click on Navigator and then on the right side click on Clear History. This will clear the pages you've recently visited.
  4. Underneath that, click on Clear Location Bar. This will clear the list of sites in your browser's location bar.
  5. Back in the left-hand column, click on Advanced. Click on Cache and then click on Clear Disk Cache. This will clear your browser's cache.

AOL's Browser:

  1. In the menu, click on My AOL.
  2. Click on Preferences.
  3. Click on the WWW icon and then under Temporary Internet Files click on Delete Files.
  4. Under History click Clear History.

Cover your email tracks:

  1. Be sure to delete any outgoing and incoming emails
  2. Change your email password often (at least once a month)
  3. Print all threatening and harassing emails to use as evidence of criminal activity.

Do not handle the situation alone - contact your local YWCA for resources, support and help.