A short introduction to index.dat files - what are they, what is their purpose and why are they considered to be
privacy threat. Index.dat files are used for the first time in Internet Explorer 4 and since
then they are part of Internet Explorer.
The location of index.dat files depends on the version of Windows and Internet Explorer. In this
chapter you can see where are located index.dat files on your computer. Some of the Index.dat files are not visible
when using Windows Explorer and are not easy to find with standard search tools of Windows.
This chapter contains a comprehensive description of the index.dat file format.
It includes hex dumps of the index.dat file header and description of all
types of index.dat file records: HASH, URL, REDR and LEAK. You are going to need
this information if you are trying to examine and understand the content of your
index.dat files.
Here you can find out how to delete the index.dat files manually. While this is
possible, it is a slow and inconvenient process. You can use an automated
program called
Mil Shield to clean not only
index.dat files but also all other tracks (cookies, history, temporary Internet
files, recent documents history and
many
other) with single click of your mouse.
