How to surf the Internet safely
Not everyone wants their family members or their partner to find out that they are looking for counselling and assistance. Below you find some suggestions for how you can wipe your online traces. Your data will therefore not be recorded or saved on the counselling platform.
On the right-hand side you will find a green button that says “Change website”. This will automatically take you to another website.
How can I wipe my traces from the internet?
By its very nature, browsing the web leaves a trace. There are, however, some tricks that allow you to surf the web mostly without leaving a trace.
Surf anonymously: incognito mode/private mode
All web browsers offer an “incognito mode”/“private mode” for anonymous browsing. When you use this, the websites you visit are not stored and significantly fewer cookies are placed. How to do this depends on the browser:
- Internet Explorer: Tools → InPrivate Browsing
- Mozilla Firefox: Menu → Private Browsing
- Google Chrome: Customise and set Google Chrome → New Incognito Window
- Safari (iPhone, iPad or iPod): File → New Private Window
- Microsoft Edge: More → New InPrivate Window
Delete the history, cache and cookies on a regular basis
Your web browser stores information, data and graphics from websites you have recently visited. You should regularly delete the data that have been saved via your browser settings, so other people cannot track them.
Deleting the history is the first thing to do. It is also useful to learn more about additional options for anonymising your visit on your browser provider’s website.
Figure out in advance which browser you are going to use to surf the internet and which version of the browser you are using. In most browsers you can find information about the version of the browser in the menu bar under “Help” or “?”.
Mozilla Firefox:
Extras/History → Delete latest history → Select time span → Select everything → Delete (OK)
You can avoid websites being recorded in the history by using the browser in “private mode”. This prevents the browser history from being recorded. You can choose for private mode to be on constantly in the menu item “settings”. This setting is only advisable if you are not the only person using the computer. Please also note the tips from the browser provider on support.mozilla.org.
Internet Explorer:
Extras and internet options → Delete all
On the “General” tab in “Browser history”, you can click to select the option for the browser history to be automatically deleted after the browser is closed.
Please also note the tips from the browser provider on windows.microsoft.com.
Google Chrome:
History → Delete browser data → Select time span → Select everything → Delete (browser) data
Please also note the tips from the browser provider on support.google.com.
Safari:
History → Delete history
Please also note the tips from the browser provider on support.apple.com.
Mobile Browser:
Since the designations for the individual functions differ in the various terminals, we cannot provide a general guide here, but you can delete the history in the settings of the browser you are using on all terminal devices.
Tip
Despite these tips it is possible that your traces may not be fully wiped. Many browser types have other options for how to save and display the websites you have visited.
