If you have a child at home and your child has access to the computer and Internet, it is a good practice to keep a watch on what your child is doing in cyberspace. You can do this by understanding how to check computer history.
If a computer is being used by multiple users, the administrator will want to keep a watch on the activities that are carried out from that machine. Monitoring keeps a check on whether a malicious or potentially dangerous or unwanted file has been downloaded from the Internet into the system. At the same time, it also helps parents to monitor children’s activities. This article will provide you the ways of how to check computer history.
Methods
Checking browsing data is not a very lengthy process. Here is how to go about it in Windows Vista. In Internet Explorer, follow the simple steps given below.
- In Internet Explorer 7, click on the Tools tab.
- In the drop-down box that appears, you will come across Explorer Bar tab. Move your mouse pointer over the tab.
- Now you will see History tab there. Click on it.
- A sidebar will appear, in which there will be browsing data according to the date.
- If you click on the particular date, you will be able to see the list of websites that were visited.
- Scroll down to see the URL or name of every website that was visited.
On Mozilla Firefox
Method 1
- Double click on Mozilla Firefox to launch the browser on your machine.
- Now click on ‘History’ tab on the text menu bar at the top of the browser.
- Scroll down to see the list of websites visited in the library box.
Method 2
- Click on View tab. You will see the ‘Sidebar’ tab.
- Click on the Sidebar tab, you will see the option for History. Click on it. You will be able to see the sidebar.
- You can also make use of the shortcut ‘Ctrl + H’ to view this sidebar.
- Here, you can check the browsing data by date.
Internet History Tracking
You can keep a track of Internet data in a number of ways. In Internet Explorer, there are temporary Internet files, which help in speeding up web browsing. These files can be used for tracking. If you have a trained eye, you will be able to understand the browsing habits very easily. Internet Explorer also has an auto-complete feature, which can be used to keep track. If you are worried about your privacy, you may opt to clean up the temporary Internet files by going to the Tools menu and from there to Internet Options, and clear the cache under the General and Content tabs.
If your child has cleared the browsing data, you will still be able to check it. Internet Explorer uses index.dat file. This file has both, the Temporary Internet Files as well as the Browsing History. It does not get deleted when the data is cleared using other methods.
If, after following the above steps, you notice that browsing data is consistently empty, there are two possibilities of what is exactly happening. One is that your child is deliberately deleting the data to prevent you from finding out where he wanders in cyber-land. The other possibility is that the settings are set to automatically delete the data every time you exit out of the Internet. If you have automatic settings, it is recommended you disable the auto-delete feature.