I’m not a bad boy, but it would minimize friction in the household.
Does such a program exist?
CleanCache is what I use and it seems to work pretty well. The only requirement is that you have Microsoft .NET framework installed.
Hope this helps.
No joy. 
Thanks for the input.
Additional suggestions, please?
What do you actually want to delete?
While that looks like a pretty good program, and while there are plenty of apparently very powerful “wipe” programs available, am I right in thinking that actually, if, say, the police or the army or someone wanted to see what one had had on one’s computer, they’d be able to find out and that’s that? Like, it’s all in there somewhere, but you have to have several gangs of professional full-timers to get it back?
It’s the impression I’ve gained from watching a recent television series about people being caught with child pornography on their PCs and elsewhere. Granted, some of them had several videocassettes sitting next to their televisions, and I suppose I can understand why one chap’s attempt to destroy his hard disc in the bath didn’t work, but otherwise, I would have thought people would go to ANY lengths to delete that stuff from their computers. Is it actually impossible to wipe things off a computer completely? Is it hit-and-miss? Or do you need some serious professional qualifications or something?
I look at porn.
And, I have a self-rightous younger brother who maintains the computer.
He treat his girl in a shabby way, he’s mean to most people, he’s the only member of our family to be arrested (drugs) , but he’s all self-rightous about me looking at nekkid women. :rolleyes: :smack:
Since I share net access with mu elderly parents, he’s always gonna fix the 'puter.
But a Washer would minimize my troubles by reducing family fights.
The technical explanation is quite complicated and involves the physics of magnetic media. The short version is that by overwriting data enough times with random patterns you can make it very difficult and expensive for anyone to recover it. With enough time and the right equipment, however, experts can reconstruct just about anything. The only surefire method is to thoroughly destroy the platters.
Some relevant comments on trying to permanently wipe data from a hard drive are here. The first response echoes Number’s post. In the third post on that page, there is a link to a free program. I have no idea how well it works, though.
Just another thought… if it’s a matter of keeping downloaded stuff from parental eyes, why not shell out a few bucks for some shareware to hide the folder you keep it in? Go to http://www.download.com and search for “invisible” or “hidden” to see what’s available.
No no.
It’s my brother, & I wanna get it out of the register, & keep the cache clean of old images.
I wanna eliminate the basis for this mutual nagging & shrieking we do.
Peace in the family…I wish it was easy.
This one was good a year or two ago.
Hmmm…what do you know about it?
Used it?
I may be missing something here, but if your brother is not a computer forensics expert, couldn’t you just right click on the IE icon, choose properties, then click on the “Clear History” and under the Temporary Internet Files section, click the “Delete Cookies” and “Delete Files” buttons. Do this after each surfing session, and you are all set.
That way, there is no suspicious software installed, and nothing will show up in the address bar drop down, the history, the cookies, or the temporary internet files.
If you use a different browser, there are similar settings there. I believe you can even configure Mozilla Firefox to delete these things automatically when you close it.
If you want more details, just let me know.
I use CyberScrub.
You won’t find any good ones for free.
I use the Free History Cleaner. I think it is an earlier version, but I have had no problems with it. As I explained to my son “I can’t stop you from looking, but I can tell you to at least get rid of it before your mother sees it”. 
I doubt it completely cleans my comp. IOW if the Effa Bee Eye comes a snoopin, I’m sure they could find the sites I’ve been to. But your average layperson wouldn’t be able to see where I’ve been. Is that what you’re looking for?
It also cleans the index.dat file too. Oh and it will clean out the Windows Media Player list, should that be an issue.
Check out Kim Komando’s site and she has http://www.igorshpak.net/ this site. I have never used it, but Kim Komando’s recommendations are ususally good enough for me.
I use Netscape.
Is there an equivalent means there?
I don’t think this will help completely, but I use IE Privacy Keeper from UsH Solutions. It cleans up IE, so it may not hit Netscape. It does hit temp files, recent documents, etc. First time I ran it the amount of stuff on my hard drive dropped by about two gigs. It also has a secure wipe feature, although I hear that those won’t stop a forensic computer expert. So that’ll get a lot of stuff right off the bat. It’s at: http://www.unhsolutions.net/IEPK/index.shtml
Searching Tech TV’s forum I found a link to this one, FWIW: http://www.iisoftware.net/index.php?clean.html
And through Netscape’s home page I found a list of privacy & security downloads, which you can sort by license (it’s a link to PC World): http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/browse/0,cat,1443,sortidx,4,00.asp
MC$E –
I am interested.
I personally don’t use Netscape, but this page has directions on how to clear out those things manually and also recommends some software packages if you want to go that route.
http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-tos/clear-browser-cache.html
On the other hand, if you are interested in trying Mozilla Firefox, which is built off the same engine as Netscape, there is a very easy way to clean up. There is a privacy tab under the options menu, and one button labled Clear All which will eliminate all temporary files, history entries, cookies, saved passwords, form information and a few other things.
Firefox is free, and is easy to install. It also features a built-in pop-up blocker which can be handy for questionable sites. There are extensions available to allow you to do all sorts of amazing things. One of my favorites is ad-block which can eliminate logos, banners, and other images from sites, every time you visit them.
I hope this helps, if you need more info on Firefox, I can dig that up for you.
Washer is a great program. You might want to search for “MRU cleaners.” Your registry and many programs will also show lists of “most recently used” files that you’ve accessed, that might give away your viewing habits even if the files themselves are deleted.