Occasionally, it may be necessary to check the history of your personal computer. This may be because you fear you have downloaded a virus or other malware, you may fear your child is on websites he shouldn't be on, or you may simply want to find a website you once visited. Checking your PC's history is relatively simple and can be done quickly.
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Difficulty:
Easy
Instructions
1
Turn on your computer and open your preferred web browser. If this is Internet Explorer, go to your toolbar and open the icon that says "History" when you hover over it. In the Firefox browser, there is a text button that says "History" on the toolbar to the right of the "File," "Edit" and "View" buttons. In Google Chrome, there is a button that looks like a wrench to the right of the address bar. Clicking on this will give you a pull-down menu; the history is in that menu.
2
Click on the appropriate button in your preferred browser. If you have other browsers loaded on your computer, you may want to check them as well, even if you never use them. The page that opens will give you a detailed list of every URL that was visited using this browser.
3
If you are concerned a history file has been erased, go to "My Computer" and double-click on the "Documents and Settings" file, and then double-click on the user you are looking for. This could be administrator, owner or the name of a person. There are generally file folders labeled "Cookies" and "Temporary Internet Files." Looking into these files will give you an idea of what sites have been visited. Looking in the "Recycle Bin" on the desktop can sometimes provide information as well.
Tips & Warnings
If you'd like to find out where your children are going on the Internet, you can purchase monitoring software like SoftActivity.This essentially logs all of the sites visited by your computer. A program like NetNanny can prevent children from visiting sites you don't want them to visit.
