Lots of websites collect personal information – some are just more obvious when doing it.

There are those sites that ask for personal information up front before granting the user access. Often, site visitors are asked for their name and e-mail address before gaining access. The Internet is a public place, so how anonymous are you? When you visit any web page, you leave traces of where you’ve been. Worse, if you share a computer, someone can see what you’ve been up to online in just a few clicks.

But there is a way to maintain your privacy through erasing the digital footprints that remain after you close your browser.

What’s important? When you want to cover your online tracks, consider removing the following: browser histories, cookies, cache files, AutoComplete information, e-mail trash, and log files created by chat programs and your internet connection. You can delete these items yourself, or install a program to do it for you.

Here are the 8 best ways to cover your online tracks:

1. Remove Most Recently Used (MRU) list

Most programs keep an MRU list showing the last used items. The most recently opened documents list is one of the ones you might be interested in, as it shows the last documents you’ve opened. You can remove or clear the list in one of several ways.

In Windows XP, you can right-click on the Start Menu, choose Properties > Start Menu > Customize > Advanced > Clear List. You can then uncheck “List my most recently opened documents” to prevent it from keeping a list in the future. Another method would be to manually remove it from the registry. Any time you tweak the registry, you run the risk of damaging your system so do so at your own risk.

If you want to remove the MRU from the registry, the key is found at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and then remove the key for “Recent Docs”. Again, back up your registry before you make any changes, there is always the risk of damage to your system.

2. Your identity

Most websites you visit log your IP address and activities, including the pages you view, the files you download, and the transactions you make. Your IP is also recorded in e-mail headers, discussion boards and mail servers. If you really want to keep your IP information private, you can install software that masks your IP, such as MMIP or Anonymous IP.

3. Cookies

Leaving a trail of crumbs with your cookies? Cookies make it easier for companies to identify visitors to their site and can be programmed to track your movements as you flit from site to site. Cookies allow websites or marketing networks to create a profile of you based on the information you have provided and your browsing patterns, and before you know it, ads are popping up on your screen. To clear them, go to your internet options and clear the cookies periodically.

4. The Cache
Empty the cache, also known as the Temporary Internet Files in Internet Explorer. The folder contains previously visited web pages and images, allowing anyone to click a link and see where you’ve been.

To clear it:

• In Internet Explorer- Choose Tools > Internet Options and click Delete Files.
• For Firefox or Netscape Choose Tools > Options, pick Privacy and click the Clear button next to Cache.
• To avoid doing this every time you surf the internet, you can disable the cache so nothing is documented.

5. Turn off AutoComplete

People can also detect where you’ve been if you have AutoComplete switched on. How do you know if it’s active? Type a few letters of a URL into your web browser and you’ll see previous entries of other searches appear. To turn it off, go to your Internet Options tab and navigate to the option that allows you to turn off AutoComplete.

6. Take out the trash

Keep the trash from getting into your inbox. Your email provider may have anti-spam software to screen spam for you. You can filter the trash by installing a program that filters out spam automatically.

Sometimes, it’s ok to keep secrets! Obviously, the best way to maintain your privacy is to use your own common sense, but pair that with a few good practices and you’re well on your way.

7. Clear Toolbar Data

If you use the Google toolbar, or Yahoo, Alexa, or any of the thousand other browser toolbars out there, make sure you clear the search data there as well. If not, when someone types something into the toolbar’s search area, it brings up your history which shows things you’ve searched on before that begin with the same letter or same word.

Clearing the toolbar will vary from one to another, but in Google’s toolbar for example, you’d click on the search box drop down and click “clear history”.

8. Anonymous Proxies

If you are ultra-concerned with privacy, you can browse the Internet through anonymous proxy servers. An anonymous proxy strips off your identifying information and replaces it with bogus information, so when you visit a website, it doesn’t show your IP address.

While this is again one of those things sounds great in theory, most of the free anonymous proxy servers are painfully slow and will make surfing too frustrating for most. The option is there however, for people who absolutely need to ensure their tracks are covered.