How To Clear History on a Laptop

Your browser collects information about you and your browsing habits over time. If you haven't taken precautions to prevent disclosing sensitive information, cleaning your laptop's browser history may be in order. You should also delete any information that your browser has acquired on its server. Most web page data is stored locally on your laptop when you surf the internet to enable sites to load quicker and decrease the amount of data transmitted over the internet. You could wipe your history to help keep your browsing history private and to save up disk space on your laptop.

How To Clear Search History on a Laptop

When you launch your browser and begin typing, it will automatically know whatever you want to access, whether it is a specific website or a hilarious video. Wondering why?  Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and the majority of other browsers save information about your queries and visits to websites. This is to allow you to immediately return to pages that you find interesting. It's indeed quite convenient and perhaps a tad bizarre.

You need to follow these steps if you wish to clear your history.

Google Chrome

• Click the Chrome icon, and select the "Menu option." 
• Choose "More tools," and click "Clear browsing data."  Alternatively, just use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+Shift+Del."
• In the drop-down menu, select what data you want to erase from your history and tick the corresponding boxes.
• Once done, tap "Clear data" to get rid of your history.

Safari

On Apple's Mac operating system, Safari is the standard browser:

• Navigate to the "Show All History" view. 
• Individual history items may be deleted by right-clicking them and selecting Delete, or by pressing Delete to remove selected history items. Use the drop-down option to select how far back you want to erase.
• Lastly, tap "Clear History."

Mozilla Firefox

• Tap the "Firefox hamburger menu" icon.
• Choose Options.
• In the left menu pane, select "Privacy & Security."
• Tap the "Clear History" button under the "History" section.
• Set the "Time range to clear" option in the "Clear Recent History" box to the appropriate time frame.
• Clear browser history for the chosen time frame by clicking the "Clear Now" button.

Opera

The Opera browser includes a very simple interface for deleting your history:

• Navigate to the "History tab" and choose "Clear browsing data."
• Select how far back in time you wish to delete your history from the "Obliterate the following items" drop-down menu. Select the beginning of time to clear everything.
•  Tick the boxes next to the history categories you wish to clear.
• Finally, tap "Clear browsing data."

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge is the standard browser integrated into Windows 10. In January 2020, it replaced Edge Legacy:

• Launch the "Microsoft Edge" web browser.
• In the top right corner of the browser window, select the "Settings and More" option.
• Choose "Settings" from the drop-down menu towards the bottom.
• Tap "Privacy, search, and services" in the "Settings" tab on the left.
• Select the "Choose what to clear button."
• Tick the box next to "Browser history" in the dialog box that will appear and then hit the "Clear now" option.

Delete All My Google Activity History on a Laptop

It is more acquainted with you than you are with yourself. It's aware of every gadget you've considered buying, every video you've watched, and every humiliating illness you've endured. It's your Google Activity, and it knows everything that you've looked up since 2005.

Clearing your internet history does not completely erase all evidence of your online activities. If you have a Google account, it gathers information not just on your searches and websites visited, but also on the movies you watch as well as the locations you visit. Google asserts that this data is collected to present you with a highly customized experience. You decide if it's fantastic or scary.

To remove data on all of your Google activity, including queries, videos, and any advertising you've clicked on, follow these steps:

• Navigate to the "My Activity page" and choose the "Delete activity by" on the menu on the left.
• You have the option of deleting your Google search history and activity as far back as you like. To remove everything, choose "All Time" from the drop-down menu.
• Select which Google services you want to remove your search history and activity from. After making your selections, tap "Next."
• Google will prompt you to verify that you wish to erase your activities. Choose "Delete."
• "Deletion accomplished" should now appear on your screen. Hit the "OK" button.

Delete All My Browser History on a Laptop

To keep your browser history confidential, you could get reasonably good results by erasing the history files on your laptop and installing software that prevents web trackers from automatically obtaining information. However, removing files on your laptop doesn't remove the contents of the files but only the file structure. A skilled tech could retrieve huge amounts of your personal data using modern data retrieval techniques. 

To completely and permanently wipe your browser history, you need to perform these two steps:

Delete Browsing History Files

• Erase your history from the browser's settings.
• Using a Windows command prompt, clear your DNS cache.
• Install and activate an online third-party monitoring blocker to prevent websites from gathering data on your browsing habits remotely. DoNotTrackMe is one good example.

Permanently Delete Browsing Data

• Back up any important data on an external drive, flash drive, or disc.
• Download and install a hard drive deletion software.
• Select the data overwriting type you want to utilize. The widely used US Department of Defense approach will create gibberish data at random and totally wipe your hard disk seven times. The Gutmann approach, which is even more reliable, overwrites the hard disk 35 times. Numerous overwrites are necessary because modern data recovery technologies may occasionally detect patterns hidden under a single overwrite.

Clearing your browser history will not completely get rid of your online activities. Even if you use the incognito mode, there will be drawbacks. But it doesn't imply you should be worried about every click you do. Simply avoid sketchy websites, never disclose your private data, such as your login and password, across unencrypted channels, and practice safe browsing habits.