STAY SAFE ONLINE
It is vital that you take a few minutes to address ways of keeping yourself safe online – the following is for your guidance although it may not completely cover your tracks.
If you want to be completely sure that you are not being tracked online, the safest option would be to access the internet at a local library or at a trusted friend’s house or your workplace.
Internet browsers save certain information as you surf the net. To find out what a person has been searching for, or what websites have been visited you can check the ‘Browser History’ and the ‘Internet Cookies’ on the device used.
You will need to know which browser your computer uses to access the internet. If you are unsure click on the help toolbar at the top of your browser screen, a drop down menu will appear. The last entry on the menu will read “About….” Followed by the name of your browser.
Private Browsing/Incognito
In a modern browser you can access the internet in a Private Browsing or Incognito Mode, this doesn’t store your website history or cookies and therefore doesn’t leave this information on your computer for other people to find.
Internet Explorer 9+
Click the Tools button or the picture of the Tools Button top right, point to Safety and then click InPrivate Browsing.
Google Chrome
In the top right corner of the browser window click the Chrome menu and then select New Incognito Window.
Firefox
Click the menu button in the top right corner and then click New Private Window.
Safari
Click the menu button in the top right hand corner and from this drop down menu select Private Browsing.
Emails
Your partner may be reading your emails so they can monitor what you are doing. Therefore it’s worthwhile taking note of the following information:
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Set up a password to log on to your computer and keep it confidential
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Sent emails are saved in to a folder marked ‘sent items’ – go here to delete any sent emails you don’t want anyone else to see
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Unfinished emails are saved in to the folder marked ‘drafts’ – go here to delete any draft messages
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If you’re replying to emails don’t forget that the original message will still be in the body of that email – delete the email if you don’t want anyone else to see its contents
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Once you have deleted items from the various folders remember that they are still held in the ‘deleted items’ folder – go here to delete the messages permanently
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If your email account is a shared account with your partner you can set up a new email account that you can keep private. Use a free provider like Hotmail or Yahoo to create an account only you can access and make sure it is password protected.
If you receive threatening or abusive emails, print them and store them somewhere secure so they can be used as evidence or forward them to a trusted friend who can keep a record for you.
Clearing your computer of website activity
If you wish to clear your web browser of a ALL browsing history please follow the instructions below to minimize the chances of someone finding out what sites you have visited online:
Be aware that removing all cookies may clear saved passwords for membership sites such as online banking, which may alert your partner to the fact that you have removed information or suspicion may be raised if your partner notices the address history on the computer has been cleared.
Internet Explorer 9+
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Click the tools button point to Safety and then click Delete browsing history
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If you don’t want to delete the cookies and files associated with websites in your favorites list, select the Preserve Favorites website data check box.
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Select the check box next to each category of information you want to delete
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Click Delete
Google Chrome
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In the top right corner of the browser window, click the menu
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Click History and recent tabs >History
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Select Clear browsing data
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Your history, cookies and other identifying objects should already be ticked, but you can make amendments as needed
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At the top of the pop up box, use the drop down menu to select which point you would like the history to be deleted from
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Click Clear browsing data
Firefox
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In the top right hand corner of the browser window click the menu
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Click History
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Select Clear recent history
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Your history and other identifying objects should already be ticked, but you can make amendments as needed
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At the top of the pop up box use the drop down menu to select which point you would like the history deleted from
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Click Clear now
Safari
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Click the Safari menu at the top left hand of the screen
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Select Reset Safari and click Reset
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This will clear the history, empties the cache, clears the downloads window and removes all cookies – it will also remove any saved user names, passwords, autofill data and Google/Yahoo search entries