How to Clear Your Cache on Any Browser
The browser history—a list of every page you've visited online and the time you were there—is a standard of modern computing. And it can lead to trouble; it's practically a cliché. Think of the romantic "comedies" where a guy (it's always a guy) finds himself in hot water after his girlfriend looks at his browser history.
For most of us, sharing a PC is normal (sadly, setting up multiple user accounts is not) and handing off a smartphone to someone isn't unheard of. It doesn't matter if you're encrypting your emails, using Tor and VPNs while browsing to stay anonymous, or if you wear a false moustache at your desk: if someone has access to your devices, they can see where you've been.
A browser will hold your history indefinitely in the event you need to find your way back to a perhaps-forgotten corner of the internet you visited once upon a time. The reality is, it can be used against you by significant others, friends, coworkers, teachers, even the authorities. It doesn't even matter if you never stopped to look at the site's contents. These days, simply visiting can be impetus enough for outrage, blackmail, or whatever you fear most in reprisal.
Think that's fear-mongering? Hopefully it is, for 99% of us. But consider that in 2016 an employee was accused in a Canadian court of destroying evidence after he cleared the browser history of his own personal laptop. (In the end, he prevailed.) In the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is intended to prevent evidence deletion by corporations, yet it's been applied to at least one individual. The caveat: the individual in question also did a lot of other stupid things.
Let's assume you're not a criminal and just want a little digital privacy. What can you do to keep your past visits hidden? Delete them. Regularly. Or perhaps the smartest move of all: make sure it is never even stored. It may make your web travels a little less convenient, but that's the price of security. Here's how to remove the history
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