Cover your tracks online

When you browse the internet on a mobile phone, tablet or computer, you leave a ‘history’ trail of pages and sites you’ve visited.

It’s impossible to completely avoid being tracked online but if you’re worried about someone knowing which sites you’ve been looking at, there are some things you can do to help cover your tracks.

We recommend using a phone or computer the person you are worried about doesn’t have access to – like a friend’s phone, work phone or access the internet at your local library.

While you’re browsing – ‘Exit this site’ button
If you don’t want someone to see that you’re viewing the IFAS website, you can click the ‘Exit this site’ button that is available on every webpage of our site, which will take you away from this site to the Google homepage.

If you’re using a laptop or desktop computer, try keeping another document or website open in a new tab or window while browsing. If someone comes in the room and you don’t want them to see what you’re looking at, you can quickly switch to another window or tab.

Delete your browsing history
You can delete the history of websites you’ve visited, but it’s important to know that if you delete your browsing history, someone else using the same device may notice as the search history will appear empty.

To address this, you can delete specific search entries.
If you share a tablet, mobile phone, laptop or computer with someone, they might notice that passwords or website addresses have disappeared from their history.

Find out how to delete your browsing history from the most commonly used browsers:

Chrome

Browsing history

Firefox

Browsing, search and download history

Internet Explorer

Browsing history

Safari

Browsing history

Opera

Private data

Private browsing (incognito)
When you’re browsing ‘incognito’, the internet browser won’t store cookies or record your browsing history on the computer, mobile or tablet.

This option is available on the most commonly used web browsers:

Chrome

Private browsing with incognito mode

Firefox

Private browsing without saving history

Internet Explorer

Private browsing

Safari

Private browsing windows

Opera

Private browsing windows

Toolbars
If you use a search toolbar in your web browser, remember that your searched items can be saved as part of your history. Find out how to delete your searched items from the following search engines:

Google

Bing

Yahoo! Search