More Internet Tweaks

I started online computing with my first Hayes Smartmodem 300 in 1981 - 300 baud! you could actually read the text as it showed up on your screen.

Anyhow - not long after I started a BBS with TBBS and was hooked for life. One thing learned the hard way was to stay anonymous online - it save the 3am "your BBS is down" calls, or worse.

Nowadays there are lots of ways webmasters can find out who you are and it pays to make it as hard as possible for them to do that. A few of them are:

In a previous post I mentioned how to set up an encrypted temporary container that is rebuilt each time the system is re-booted Using TrueCrypt. Why not use it to squirrel away stuff from the browser. And all those installation files that clutter up your system. You history for you browser will never work again, but there is always Google to re-find something you saw last week.

Relocate the Firefox cache file into the encrypted temporary container maintained by TrueCrypt. Webshaker mentions a way - but I had to do it a little different in the current version of Firefox. After you enter about:config in the address bar - You have right click on the list of keys and select new, then enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory into the dialog. Entering t:\firefox in the next dialog finishes up the tweak.

For Internet Explorer in the main menu select Tools->Internet Options then in the Browsing History section of the page click on the Settings button. (almost there) Next, clicking on the Move folder button will pop up a folder dialog that will allow you to browse to the Temporary container and select it. The location will then say T:\Temporary Internet Files.

While at it - why not repoint the temporary files area that Windows uses to the same place. Right click on the My Computer icon select Properties -> advanced -> environrnment variables and look for the TEMP and TMP settings in the User Variables window - edit each one and point it to T:\temp or something. Windows will want you to reboot after this tweak so be prepared - save early and save often.