Posts Tagged ‘delete index.dat’
Windows users are constantly trying to find ways to protect their privacy from other people that may use the computer. Even after spending countless hours clearing the browsing history and other recently opened files in other applications, Internet Explorer still manages to display addresses that you previously typed in the past and it seems impossible to remove these entries. Before you try to remove them, you need to understand where they are located so you know what are dealing with.
Where the Records are Stored
There are several files that are hidden in the history, temporary internet files, userdata, and cookies folders all having the name Index.dat. You won’t be able to read these files directly and deleing the files are not possible because they are all constantly being accessed. This leaves people wondering on how to delete index.dat files.
Reading the Index.dat File
Before deleting the entries within the index.dat file, it is best to take a good look at what you are about to delete and see if there is a need to bookmark any addresses stored there. Opening the index.dat file using a text editor will give you a lot of gibberish, but you can still see some of the addresses that are stored inside. To make things easier, consider getting an Index.dat viewer. Most of the 3rd party applications that can read the file are safe to use.
Clearing the Index.dat Records
After you did a general check on what is inside the Index.dat file, you can get to the specifics on how to delete index.dat files. The easiest way to do this is by acquiring a Windows cleaner or any program that claims to remove Internet tracks. Surprisingly, there are a lot of freeware programs available that can effectively clean out the index.dat files and simultaneously improve system performance and privacy by deleting other areas as well. This is useful if you are using other Internet browsers to get work done because only Internet Explorer makes use of the index.dat file. If you insist on clearing them manually, do not do it because the index.dat is a critical system file and attempting to modify it or force deletion outside of the operating system can lead to some serious problems.
Programs to Use
While there are some programs out there that target the index.dat file, it is better to get bigger solutions that can automatically remove history entries of different software. CCleaner which is completely free to use is an excellent program of clearing out traces to improve performance and maintain privacy all over the system.
After a successful cleanup, understand that your index.dat will slowly fill up over time again so you will need to clear entries every time you start browsing. If you have the right software, you can do this easily whenever needed.