Cover your tracks online

You may not want other people to know that you’ve been searching for information or help from websites such as My Support Space or the Victim Support website.

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.

While you’re browsing – ‘Hide this site’ button

If you don’t want someone to see that you’re viewing the Victim Support website, you can click the ‘Hide this site’ button on the left, 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.

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:

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:

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: