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Ministry of
Children, Community and Social Services

• Hide your Internet Activities
• Safety Screen

Hide Your Internet Activities

Are you worried that someone might find out you visited this website?

The Internet is a great resource for finding information that can help you make decisions about your personal situation. However, it’s important to understand that the record of your Internet activities does not disappear when you close your browser. If the person who is abusing you is good on a computer, it may not be safe for you to be visiting sites for abused women unless you take precautions to hide your Internet activities.

These precautions include the following steps to help you remove your Internet history if you are concerned that the person abusing you could check up on your Internet activities:

• Visit websites from a place other than your home, such as a public library, school, internet cafe or your workplace.
• Delete cookies and clear your browser history (cache). Cookies are a way for websites to track their visitors and their actions. They do this by storing small bits of information on your computer. Sometimes this means that the site will “remember” you when you visit again. For example, if you enter your name when you go to a website, it may display your name when you visit again. Here is how to delete cookies from your computer:

If you are using Firefox:

1. From the MENU icon (three horizontal bars) at the top right, select “History”
2. Click the button “Clear recent history”
3. From the drop-down menu, select a time range to clear
4. Under “Details”, check “Browsing & Download History”
5. Check “Form & Search History”
6. Check “Cookies”
7. Check “Cache”
8. Check “Active Logins”
9. Check “Offline Website Data”
10. Check “Site Preferences”
11. Click the button “Clear Now”

If you are using Chrome:

1. From the MENU icon (three horizontal bars) at the top right, select “History”
2. Click the button “Clear browsing data”
3. From the drop-down menu, select a time range to clear
4. Check “Browsing history”
5. Check “Download history”
6. Check “Cookies and other site and plug-in data”
7. Check “Cached images and files”
8. Check “Passwords”
9. Check “Autofill form data”
10. Check “Hosted app data”
11. Click the button “Clear browsing data”

If you are using Internet Explorer:

1. From the TOOLS menu at the top, click “Delete Browsing History”
2. Uncheck “Preserve Favorites website data”
3. Check “Temporary Internet files”
4. Check “Cookies”
5. Check “Form data”
6. Check “Passwords”
7. Check “InPrivate Filtering data”
8. Click the “Delete” button