Sorry if this one’s shown up before. Perhaps you’ve seen those adverts for programs that allegedly prevent your PC from tracking where you go on the Internet, etc… My question is: aside from clearing cookies, cache, history files, and drop down menus (something anyone can learn to do) do these programs go any further? What else is there? In what other ways could the PC “spy” on the user? If there are any how does one go about accessing them? Thanks in advance.
I’ve been using a program (Web Root’s Window Washer) that’s about the same. It has a “bleaching” function. It will write a series of 1’s and 0’s over the files it is to delete. You can also indicate any other files to be “bleached.” When you delete files from your computer, you don’t really delete them. If you were to make no changes to your system after “deleting” files, it IS possible for those files to be recovered. By “bleaching” them, the only thing a recovery program would bring up is gibberish.
Those programs simply delete all the various histories and cookies from all the nooks and crannies of your OS and as Mr. Blue Sky points out, rewrites the “deleted” file sectors with a hash of 1’s and 0’s.
You can delete the cache and histories yourself, but some are pretty well hidden. The re-writing with gobbley-gook… I wouldn’t know how to go about doing that on your own.
The most thorough of those types of programs is the Internet Shredder.
[ul][li]cleans browser cache and cookie files[]cleans browser history logs[]cleans browser ‘drop down’ location and address bars[]delete the un-deletable ‘index.dat’ cookie file[]cleans Media Player history[]cleans Windows registry[]cleans Windows Temporary files[]cleans Windows recycle Bin[]cleans ‘recent documents’ folder[]cleans recent ‘find files’ history[]cleans recent ‘find computers’ history[]cleans Windows Clipboard[]cleans recent ‘run’ historyDepartment of Defense compliant Secure File Shredding[/ul]That “index.dat” file is a real bugger-- Windows won’t let you delete it, period. Internet Shredder gets around it by deleting it each time you start your computer, before Windows starts. Most programs don’t bother with it.[/li]
A note: the “YOUR COMPUTER IS SPYING ON YOU” thing is a scare tactic, and most of the programs that use it ironically only keep people from snooping about what you’ve been up to, when you’re away from you’re computer. A common trick of those types of marketers is to show you the contents of your hard-drive in a pop-up window, with a message like “Look at what WE can see!” The thing is, they can’t see it, or access it, it’s just a little script that shows you what’s there, they don’t have the required permissions to view it themselves.
For dealing with actual spyware, (ie programs that monitor your net use and pass info about you back to advertisers,) hands down, the best solution is AdAware from Lavasoft. It rules. Nobody should go online without it.
Window Washer doesn’t do that one. However, I discovered a way to get rid of it: Open Notepad and save the blank file as index.dat. Works every time.
That works in Windows 98, but not in XP.
Does anyone know of an easy way to get rid of the index.dat file? (One that I don’t have to pay for?)
What is the index.dat file?
Go and clear out your Temporary Internet Files. You’ll see index.dat. Just try to delete, see what happens. You can’t!!!
OH, sorry Zebra, I didn’t really answer your question, a fine question it is. Just what is that file for? No clue.
There are actually a number of files called index.dat used by windows. The contentious one is the one in your cookies folder. It can become quite large, and is some sort of cross-reference of URL’s related to the cookies. (I think.)
Most cleaners just delete the cookie files, but leave the corresponding entries in the index.dat file, which grows, and grows, and grows…
Not sure what cookies are? Personally, I think it’s a good idea to disallow cookies by default, and only allow them for your trusted sites-- like the SDMB, which makes good use of them to keep track of which posts are “new to you”, etc.
As for a “free” solution, you might try downloading PurgeIE. I have not used this program and cannot vouch for it, but it’s distributed as shareware… Free for two weeks, $20 after that. Judging by the screen-shot, it looks a little, uh, thrown together- I’d go for something more reputable if I were going to put money down on it.
If you want to delete the index.dat of User1, then login in as User2 and navigate to the index.dat file you want (C:\Documents and Settings\User1\UserData\index.dat), and you’ll be able to delete it…
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Yes, Evidence Eliminator is a scare program trying to make a buck. No, that doesn’t mean the problems aren’t real.
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Internet security is an extraordinarly complicated subject, well beyond the knowledge of most computer users. These sorts of programs are attempting to protect you, without making it too difficult. If you are a typical user, buying McAfee or Norton Anti-Virus (AND following the instructions) will keep you safe.
If you aren’t a typical user… and, for example, your business is at stake… call in a security professional.
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If you’re just trying to hide the porn sites you’ve been to, and/or don’t like people keeping records about your computer use, then Tweak UI, made by Microsoft, and available free from places like www.tucows.com, will erase most of it (Go to the Paranoid tab).
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There are several approaches to avoiding cookie problems. I won’t list them all. You can just go to C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files and delete them all (WHICH WILL CAUSE PROGRAMS THAT REQUIRE LOGINS AND PASSWORDS TO NOT RECOGNIZE YOU, AMONG OTHER THINGS. These are generally easily fixed, but it does stop a few things working for awhile.). I like to delete any cookies that have the letters “ad”, “sex”, and “tracker”, etc. I also delete any cookie that uses numbers for a filename, instead of English words you can recognize.
The best way to avoid cookies is not to accept them in the first place. Clever, eh? 
I have not used IE6 so I cannot tell what its cookie management is like, but Mozilla has a very good one.