Protecting your privacy when you go online is always important but often even more so when searching for and viewing pornography online. Protecting yourself is not always easy but there are some simple steps you can take to assist you.

The Problems

It all starts when you do a search or type in a web site address of a porn site. Many browsers maintain a history of words typed into a search form on a search engines page or web sites typed into your browser. So for example, if you type in "hot women" one day and the next day your child tried to do a search for "horses" and starts typing in ho and the search form automatically remembers and fills in your previous "hot women" search. Same with typing in a web address in your browsers location bar.

Once you find a porn site and start viewing photos and videos you need to understand that this content is often saved on your computers hard drive in an area known as "cache". The idea is that if you were to view the same content later, your computer will be able to retrieve it faster from the cache than having to download it all over again. Problem is others looking in your cache folder or searching your computer for files can see these files.

The Solutions

While all these "features" were intended to help users improve their experience they are more often seen as threats to peoples privacy. Luckily there are three ways to address the problem. The first is to disable the features in ones browser. Most browsers will allow people to prevent form fields from remembering previously typed data, prevent previous web addresses visited from showing up in the browser location box or history and not store files viewed on a computers hard drive in an area known as cache.

The second method is to reset these areas manually through the browser after each session. This is usually to time consuming for most people to do and thus created the marketplace for the third solution. The third solution is to use privacy software that periodically or on a preset schedule clears this information from your hard drive for you. These are typically free or low cost utilities that run in your system tray. Here are some links to a few free ones; CCleaner, CleanUp, IE Privacy Keeper, and ones that charge a fee; Window Washer, Privacy Guardian, Max PC Privacy, Evidence Nuker and Evidence Eliminator.

Personal Info

As far as the privacy of ones personal and payment info, most sites have secure join pages so the information is encrypted while sent over the Internet and thus relatively safe from prying eyes at that point. It is usually then stored in a password protected database until you cancel your membership.

In most cases ones payment and address information is kept private. Of more concern is how the site treats your email address. Some may send newsletters about the site out to it so it is wise to use an address that is not shared by others. Worst case the site may sell or rent your address out. By using a truly unique address, such as xxxwebsitename92384@hotmail.com, and only using that address for signing up at that site, you will be able to see if they sold or rented it. Good sites will follow a privacy policy to insure your information is not shared with others and often these policies are published publicly on their site or in their terms of service.