Do you Think Clearing Your Browser History Really Delete It?

Even after clearing your browsing history you can find out which websites you have visited, there are several ways through which you can recover your browsing history.

Recovering Deleted Files

Your browser history gets stored as a file just like everything on your computer, you can easily remove these files, you just need to know where these files are saved.

Internet Explorer: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History

Mozilla Firefox: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>

Google Chrome:  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

Replace the “username” with the name of the user whose history you want to recover. Set your recovery software to scan the specified directories in oerder to recover the files.

Check this out: 7 Best Security Apps for Android to Protect your Android Phones

DNS Cache Inspection

The computer uses the DNS servers to resolve the hostname into IP addresses and then such queries are stored in DNS cache when you clear the browsing history the DNS cache is not touched.

If you want to view the cached websites lookups for your system:

• Open the command prompt by typing “cmd” in the start menu.

• Then type the following command:

ipconfig /displaydns

As you can see that DNS cache reveals that we have recently visited www.google.in.

Similarly, DNS cache not only looks up for the browsers but as well as application updates, videos, games and any other thing connecting to the internet uses DNS cache to lookup hostnames. To see this in action, try pinging a website that you haven’t recently visited, and then looking at your DNS cache.

 ping bing.com

And then:

ipconfig /displaydns

You’ll see bing.com listed in the results, even though you haven’t actually visited that website.

How to clear DNS cache?

When you restart your computer the cache gets cleared or otherwise, you can run the following command in the command prompt.

ipconfig /flushdns

Router logs

Some routers have the ability to log all incoming and outgoing traffic. Every brand of router is different but most of the times this setting is disabled by default. On a Linksys router, pull up the settings (192.168.1.1 in your browser), and then navigate to Administration>log.

Poke around your router settings or consult the manual to find out if yours has the option to log connections, and how to enable it. Once enabled, you can view the log to see all established connections – you’ll want to filter by outgoing.

If you want to mantain a complete privacy on what you browse you can use a VPN to keep privacy.

For any queries or suggestions, please leave a comment!!