Erase your trail with Internet Cleanup

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Internet Cleanup allows you to selectively remove cookies from your browser, among other features

by Stan Miastkowski

(IDG) -- These days, one of the biggest chinks in your privacy is your PC, whether at home or at work. Without protection, your system is an open book to anyone who has the ability to get in--via the Internet or by walking into your office. If you want to make sure nobody is snooping into your surfing habits, you might want to check out one of the recently released utilities that can cover your tracks on the Web. The latest, Internet Cleanup ($24.95) from Ontrack, does a good, basic cleaning job--although it doesn't go quite far enough, in my estimation.

Internet Cleanup deletes or shreds cookies and browser cache files. Of course, if you delete all your cookies and empty your caches, you must be prepared to put up with the associated inconveniences: You'll no longer be automatically recognized at your favorite shopping site, and your autocomplete function for typing in URLs won't be able to draw from recently cached addresses.

Shredded Beyond Recognition

I tested Internet Cleanup using Internet Explorer 5.5. Internet Cleanup's main window displays a list of cached files, browser history items, cookies, ActiveX controls, and installed plug-ins. From there, you can erase the cache and history files immediately, adjust the program's settings, schedule automatic erasure, or manually choose files to remove. In automatic mode, you can set Internet Cleanup to clean out your browser files at several different times: when you start up or shut down your PC, when you exit your browser, or once a day, at a time you specify.

The utility's default options are conservative; they simply erase browser cache files and history items. And in that default lies a potential problem. Unless you enter the settings page and check the individual Shred Files options for both cache and history, the erased files will be moved into the recycle bin, where anyone with access to your PC can find and open them. According to Ontrack, with the Shred option checked, the erased files are overwritten with zeroes so they can't be recovered with unerase utilities. And it works: After shredding my cache and history files, I was unable to recover them using Norton Utilities' UnErase.

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Internet Cleanup's well-designed handling of cookies lets you create a list of cookies to leave alone--for example, those that contain automatic log-in information for Web-based e-mail or scheduling. However, by default, cookie deletion is off.

The utility is also unique among its kind in that it offers you the ability to delete ActiveX controls. Unfortunately, many Web sites download ActiveX controls to your PC automatically when you access them. ActiveX controls are designed to enhance your Web experience, but hackers can use malicious ActiveX controls to launch destructive operations on your PC. ActiveX controls also take up space and can bog down performance.

Internet Cleanup can also remove browser plug-ins you no longer need, although most of those plug-ins can also be removed through Windows' Add/Remove Programs option. I deleted Macromedia Shockwave from my browser without problems. (Note that this ability isn't a substitute for an antivirus or firewall utility that can stop malicious ActiveX controls before they're installed.)

Easy to Use, but Easy to Beat

Although Internet Cleanup can do an effective job of removing cache and history files (assuming you've selected the Shred option), it doesn't go far enough. For example, it doesn't clear Windows' Recent Documents list, which can offer a wealth of information to anyone who wants an idea of what you've been doing on the Web. The list shows the names of graphics files you've looked at, as well as the names of other files you've downloaded and opened. Although the files themselves are not accessible because they've been erased, their names alone can reveal a lot. Internet Cleanup also doesn't touch your Recent Applications list, another area that can give others hints of what you've been doing on your PC. Nor does Internet Cleanup sweep your temp directory, yet another source of leftover browsing files.

If you want only some basic Internet security and automatic purging of your cache file, Internet Cleanup will be helpful, but if you really want to hide your tracks, it won't do the job. SurfSecret works much more effectively for the same price.

Internet Cleanup works with Windows, 95, 98, Me, NT, and 2000, and is compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and above, Netscape Navigator 4.x, America Online, and Opera 3.6x.

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