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Glossary

AutoComplete forms and passwords

The AutoComplete forms and passwords feature of the Internet Explorer saves previous entries you've made in Web forms (including your name, e-mail, SSN, credit card information) and passwords. Then, when you type information in one of these fields, AutoComplete suggests possible matches. These matches can include information for just about any field you fill in on a Web page. Mil Shield cleans all AutoComplete records.

browse history

Internet Explorer and Windows remember all pages that you visit on the Internet and even some folders on your own PC under the name browse history. Mil Shield cleans browse history records.

client
common file dialogs history

Windows common file dialogs are used by almost all applications for the file open and save dialogs. They provide similar look and feel for the file operations in each application. They also save a full history of the recently opened and saved files of every type and even a list with recently visited folders. Mil Shield cleans common file dialogs history.

cookies

Some Web sites store information in small text files on your computer. These files are called cookies. Cookies are privacy threat because they can contain sensitive information like your name and password for web mailboxes, password-protected sites, etc. Even if the cookies don’t contain such information they clearly show that you visited the sites from which they came. Of course they have some advantages: you don’t need to enter you user information every time when you visit a site that needs your user profile.

In Internet Explorer 5.0 and later there is yet another way that some new Internet sites use to store information about you – it is called UserData records. Mil Shield cleans both cookies and UserData records. It cleans not only the cookie files but also the cookie records from the Index.dat files.

If you delete all cookies you will have to enter your user name, password and other details every time when you visit a web site that needs registration. So it comes down to a choice between privacy and convenience of Web browsing. With Mil Shield you don’t have to make this choice. You can turn off the cleaning for the cookies from sites that don’t contain any sensitive information or are not considered forbidden in your environment.

default user account

The default user account is a special user account. The default user account is used as template when new user accounts are created.

In Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME if you don’t have user profiles the default user account is the one and only user account. Even if you have user profiles, you still log in the default user account when you don’t enter username in the logon dialog.

Flash cookies

The Flash cookies are small pieces of information that are left on your PC from various websites with Flash content. They are very similar to the ordinary cookies and can be cleaned selectively. The official name of the Flash cookies is local shared objects.

As with ordinary cookies, it comes down to a choice between privacy and convenience of Web browsing. With Mil Shield you don't have to make this choice. You can turn off the cleaning for the Flash cookies from sites that don't contain any sensitive information or are not considered forbidden in your environment.

Note that the Flash cookies are shared between all browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome) and therefore if you delete the Flash cookies for one browser, they are deleted for all browsers.

global rule

Global rule is a rule, which is in effect for all programs on your PC. It allows specific network connections, based on the direction of the traffic, remote computer address, protocol and destination ports. Generally, it is better to use program rules, which allow access only to specific program on your computer. The global rules must be used only for some programs or services that do not use the standard Windows network interface and their network access can not be allowed with program rules. Mil Firewall allows usage of both global and program rules.

home page of the Internet Explorer

Your home page (also known as start page) is the page that appears every time when you open Internet Explorer. Many Web sites change (also known as hijacking) this page to their pages (usually full of ads and with many annoying pop-up windows).

Mil Shield allows you to set a preferred home page that will be restored each time when a cleaning is performed.

incoming connection

Incoming connection is connection that is started by other computer and accepted by our computer. Although almost all network connections are bidirectional, it is important which of the two computers starts the connection. The computer that starts the connection is called client and the computer that accepts the connection is called server.

In almost all cases the incoming connections must be disabled for regular computers. The only notable exceptions are the network computer games (where you can play with other players over the internet but only if your computer is the game server); and if you are sharing folders of your PC to the other computers at your home or office network. Mil Firewall allows you to permit only the incoming connections that you want.

Index.dat files

Index.dat files are cache files used by Internet Explorer. When you visit a Web page, Internet Explorer saves the address of the page, time of visiting and even the HTTP request for this page in few different Index.dat files. The cookie names, UserData records sources and much other information is also stored in the Index.dat files. Later this information is not deleted even if you delete History and temporary Internet files folders content. Everyone can see the contents of these files with a binary editor program, which exposes all tracks of your browsing.

These files can’t be found with regular file search and even if you find them, you can’t delete them because they are used by Windows all the time. Only specialized program like Mil Shield delete the contents of these files.

If you have Internet Explorer 3.x installed then you have mm256.dat and mm2048.dat files. They are fairly similar to the Index.dat files. If you want to learn more about where are located index.dat files, what is their content and how can you erase them, read the article Deleting index.dat files.

Internet cache
IP address

The IP address is the address for each computer, which is used in the IP protocol. The currently used IP addresses are composed of 4 numbers (each in range 0-255), which are separated by periods (for example 112.38.234.201). The IP address can be used in Mil Firewall rules to restrict which computers can connect to our computer by specifying their IP addresses.

As there are limited number of available IP addresses, in most cases your computer has address that looks like this: 192.168.0.xx (where xx is number form 1 to 254) and the other computers on your office or home network has similar addresses with different last number. You can allow the access to all computers on your office or home network by using a network mask. For example 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 includes all addresses that start with 192.168.0.

local shared objects
low level Recycle Bin cleaning

When you right click on the Recycle Bin window and choose Empty Recycle Bin form the context menu Windows cleans the Recycle Bin through Windows shell (special Windows part). This is not the safest way to delete the content of the Recycle Bin because although it may appear empty in many cases its content can be salvaged. Therefore Mil Shield uses low level disk cleaning in addition to standard shell operation for reliable cleaning of the Recycle Bin.

MRU folders

Windows Explorer remembers recently visited folders on your computer. The reason for this is to save your folder specific settings. Obviously this is also a threat to your privacy so if you don’t use different settings for each folder you can safely leave on the cleaning option of Mil Shield for MRU folders

network access rule

See rule

network service

In Mil Firewall, the network service is the combination of ports and protocols, which are required for a specific network activity. For example, the access to web pages require outgoing connection to the Web server, using protocol TCP and port number 80.

outgoing connection

Outgoing connection is connection that is started by our computer and accepted by other computer. Although almost all network connections are bidirectional, it is important which of the two computers starts the connection. The computer that starts the connection is called client and the computer that accepts the connection is called server.

In most cases your computer act like client and creates outgoing connections to other computers. Mil Firewall allows you to permit only the outgoing connections that you want.

program rule

Program rule is a Mil Firewall rule, which is in effect only for specific program on your PC. It allows specific network connections, based on the direction of the traffic, remote computer address, protocol and destination ports. Some programs or services that do not use the standard Windows network interface and program rules will not allow their network access. In such cases you have to use global rules.

protocol

The protocol (from network protocol) is set of rules that specify how to open, maintain and close network connection between two or more programs on different computers. All commonly used protocols are based on the IP protocol. The most important IP-based protocols, which are used by 95% of network communications, are the TCP and UDP protocols. Additionally, the ICMP protocol is used for test and control purposes (for example network ping to see if the network is working).

Each Mil Firewall rule allows a specific IP protocol (TCP, UDP, ICMP or any other IP protocol, if you know its protocol number). You can also allow all protocols at once but this is not recommended since this option turns off the checks for port number and packet type.

recent documents history

Windows remembers the most recently used files of any kind (text files, Web pages, songs, video clips, etc.). The reason behind this is that you will be able to navigate faster to your documents when you click Start Menu and open Documents sub menu. However not all remembered documents are shown there so you must not assume that a document is not remembered just because you can’t see it in this menu. Mil Shield cleans the recently used documents history.

recent download folder

Internet Explorer remembers the folder where you downloaded a file (picture, text or whatever) from the Internet. If you want to download another file Internet Explorer offers you to save this file in the same folder as the previous downloaded file. This may reveal where is your download directory. Mil Shield forces Internet Explorer to forget the recent download folder.

registration code

Registration code is a special sequence of characters (letters and digits) that is sent to you when you purchase one of our products. When you enter this code in the the program Buy Now! dialog then the program will continue to work even when its trial period is over.

rule

The rule (from network access rule) is a permission for some kind of network data exchange to or from your computer. By default all network access is disabled by Mil Firewall. You have to create rules to enable specific kinds of network traffic. There two types of rules: global rules and program rules. Mil Firewall will create default rules for most widely used programs and services.

The rule allows the network traffic based on its direction (to or from this computer), the address of the other computer, the protocol used, the port numbers on our and the other computer and (for program rules only) the program, which tries this network access.

server
shareware

Shareware programs are not free. Shareware is the accepted word, but trialware would be a better name for it. You are usually given a period of time to use and evaluate the program to help you decide whether or not you wish to purchase the program. After you are done with the trial period, you must either pay for the program (also known as registering) or remove it from your computer.

Start menu most frequently used programs

In Windows Vista and Windows XP there is so called MFU (Most Frequently Used) list of programs in the left part of the Start menu. Each time when you start a program, Windows increases a special counter in order to maintain this list. Note that in the Start menu you can see only the few most frequently used programs but information is saved by Windows for all programs.

Start menu Run history

When you start a program by direct typing of its name in the Run dialog (opened from Start Menu) Windows remembers the name of the program in order to make easier your typing next time when you decide to run the same program. If you don’t want to expose the programs that you run through Run command then you can use the Mil Shield program.

Temporary Internet Files

Also known as Internet cache. The Temporary Internet Files folder is the location on your hard disk where Web pages and files (such as graphics) are stored as you view them. This speeds up the display of pages you frequently visit or have already seen, because Internet Explorer can open them from your hard disk instead of from the Web. Internet files are also stored on your computer when you make Web pages available for offline browsing. You can view these files without being connected to the Internet.

Unfortunately besides the speedup and ability to see the files without being connected to the Internet you have a major privacy problem with these files because virtually everyone can see some very personal information. If you delete these files loading of some Internet pages will be much slower but your privacy will be protected. With Mil Shield you don’t have to make a choice between speed of the browsing and your privacy. You can turn off the cleaning for the sites that don’t contain any sensitive information or are not considered forbidden in your environment.

thumbnails cache

From Windows XP there is a special feature called thumbnails cache. Windows creates small images from your documents and stores them on your hard disk. In Windows XP these stored (cached) images are in each folder (in the hidden file thumbs.db) but they can easily be turned off from Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Options menu.

In Windows Vista however, you can not turn off only the caching of thumbnails. And if you turn off the thumbnails, you will not see them at all (they are not recreated each time when you view the folder). If you want to see the thumbnails in Vista but do not want them to be stored, you can leave the thumbnails turned on and use Mil Shield to clean the cached images.

trusted site

Trusted site is a site which tracks will not be cleaned when Mil Shield cleans other tracks. When you install Mil Shield the list of trusted sites is empty but later you can add as much trusted sites as you want.

typed URL history

Typed URL history is a special history composed by all web site addresses that you typed directly in the address bar of the Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Run dialog. Mil Shield cleans typed URL history along with other tracks.

UserData records

UserData records are very similar to cookies. Just like the cookies they are used by some Web sites to store information about you on your computer and are privacy threat because they can contain sensitive information like your name and password for web mailboxes, password-protected sites, etc. Even if the UserData records don’t contain such information they clearly show that you visited the sites from which they came. Of course they have some advantages: you don’t need to enter you user information every time when you visit a site that needs your user profile.

The primary difference between cookies and UserData records is that the stored information in UserData records can be much larger (up to 128 KB per record). UserData records are stored in yet another Index.dat file in a hidden Windows directory. Only Internet Explorer 5 and later support UserData records.

Mil Shield cleans both cookies and UserData records.

Windows clipboard

The Windows clipboard is a part of the computer memory used for cut/copy and paste operations. When you cut or copy piece of text, image or something else, this thing is placed in the clipboard and stays there until is replaced by another piece or the Windows is shut down.

If you forgot something in the clipboard it can be seen by someone with access to your PC by simply issuing paste command. You can use Mil Shield to clean the clipboard.

Windows temporary files folder

This is the location where Windows and many applications save temporary files needed for their operation. Sometimes these files are not deleted when they are not needed anymore and take valuable disk space (their size can be hundreds of megabytes and even more). These files can be a security threat too because if they are examined with binary editor program one can see parts or even whole documents, images, etc. Mil Shield cleans this folder if you want.

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