Temporary Internet Files
What are Temporary Internet Files?
Temporary Internet Files are, in fact, the cache of the Internet Explorer. This means that when you load a web page with
Internet Explorer, it is saved on your computer so that if you later decide to open the same page again, it will open
a lot faster. Temporary Internet Files improve speed of web browsing and also make possible so called offline
browsing, which gives you the ability to open the web pages from cache even when you are not connected to the
Internet.
Despite all these positive things about Temporary Internet Files, they have one big drawback: they compromise
your privacy. Everyone with access to your computer can look into your Temporary Internet Files folder (location
of this folder is discussed here) and see the sites that you have visited in the past. You can manually delete the
contents of Temporary Internet Files folder (explained here) but this will not erase all traces of the pages because
a special file called Index.dat is placed in this folder and it will still preserve the names and even the dates of
your first visits to many pages.
Can we delete all traces that can be used to determine which pages were visited? And can we enjoy the benefits
of Temporary Internet Files without fear that this will make our online habits highly exposed? Both questions have
one answer: you can use Mil Shield to clean all traces and even to select some sites that can be left in
Temporary Internet Files if you wish.
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2.80 MB - 30 sec with broadband or 5 minutes with dial-up link
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If you want to know more about Temporary Internet Files and want to locate them and delete them manually,
then read the next chapters of this article.
Where is located Temporary Internet Files folder?
The location of the Temporary Internet Files folder depends on the version of Windows and whether or not you are
using user profiles.
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If you have Windows Vista then
Temporary Internet Files are in these locations (note that on your PC they can be on other drive instead of drive C):
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\
Note, that you will have to change the settings of Windows Explorer to show all kinds of files
(including the protected system files) in order to access these folders.
- If you have Windows XP or Windows 2000 then
Temporary Internet Files are in this location (note that on your PC they can be on other drive instead of drive C):
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
If you have only one user account on Windows XP or Windows 2000 then replace <username>
with Administrator to get the path of the Temporary Internet Files folder.
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If you have Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows
NT or Windows 95 then index.dat files are in these locations:
C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
C:\Windows\Profiles\<username>\Temporary Internet Files\
Note that on your computer the Windows directory may not be C:\Windows but some other directory.
If you don't have Profiles directory in you Windows directory don't worry - this just means that
you are not using user profiles.
You can use Mil Shield to
clean the content of Temporary Internet Files along with index.dat files, history, cookies, cache and many other tracks.
How to delete Temporary Internet Files?
To delete Temporary Internet Files manually, do the following things:
- Start Internet Explorer and click Tools menu, then select
Internet Options... from this menu. This will open the Internet Options
window.
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Click General tab and then find in the section
Temporary Internet Files the button Delete Files...
and click it. A new dialog box opens.
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In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select
the Delete all offline content check box if you
want to delete all Web page content that you have made available offline.
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Click OK to delete the files. Note that if you are doing this for the first time,
the deleting can take a large amount of time, so be patient.
WARNING! This will most probably delete all visible items in the
Temporary Internet Files folder (except cookies) but a number of invisible traces may
remain in the index.dat files. The only way to be sure that you are getting rid of all
traces for good is the usage of specialized privacy protection program like
Mil Shield.
Mil Shield is a powerful privacy protection program that was designed specifically to clean
and shred the Temporary Internet Files. Additional benefit is the ability to preserve the tracks from
some chosen by you sites (selective cleaning), which makes your browsing more comfortable and safe
(it is rather suspicious to always have empty history, cookies and Temporary Internet Files - it is better
to leave some tracks from "innocent" sites). Mil Shield also cleans all other tracks as index.dat files,
cookies, history, cache, AutoComplete records, UserData records, history of recently used folders and
documents and many more.
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