The Yahoo search box retains all past entries. How can I erase them?

Question

I do not want Yahoo to retain any past search words.

Answer 1

Depends on the browser you are using. Netscape 8.1 has a setting in the options that clears the search box every time you exit.

Don't know about IE... I quit using that last year sometime. (for reasons like this... and way too many pop-ups)

Cheers!

Answer 2

DELETING SEARCH HISTORY

Interenet Explorer --

EASY and Quick -- You should do this often

- TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS

- On the GENERAL Tab, click the 'Clear History' Button in the 'History' section

- Hint 1: While you're there, you might want to look at the second section entitled 'Temporary Internet Files'. I routinely click on 'Delete Cookies' ... more on Cookies later.

- Hint 2: You might want to click the 'Delete Files' button too -- Ensure that you delete all Off-Line Content. Note that the more stored web-pages you have the longer this will take. If it takes a few minutes to do, you should have done this a long time ago.

- Hint 3: Do this every month or so, depending on how much surfing you do or if you find yourself on a page of dubious content

- Hint 4: Click the settings button and set "Check for newer versions of stored pages:" to "Every visit to the page". Not doing this will essentially read the page from your hard drive instead of the website and you will not see the latest changes.

- Hint 5: The amount of disk space to use for stored pages should be relatively small -- figure less than 10% of your total drive space (i.e. 10% of a 40GB drive is about 4GB or 4,096MB). Just a rule of thumb, but that's still a LOT of web pages. I spend lots of time on the internet surfing all over the place -- Mine is set at 300MB and I have almost a terabyte of disk space.

- Hint 6: Days to keep search in history ? Make some sense ? Set it to ZERO !

- On the CONTENT Tab, click the AUTO COMPLETE button. Click the "Clear Forms" button. This will delete the stuff that you've previously typed into various web-pages.

GOOGLE AND OTHERS

This is a great source:

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165181


COOKIES and OFF-LINE CONTENT

Cookies are small files left on your computer by web-pages to record little things. They are not all bad. When you key in your zip code on Yahoo Weather on the home page and say "Save this" -- it does -- in a little Cookie File. This way, the next time you visit the site, it 'remembers' your zip code. Fantastic !

Banking sites remember your passwords, your account numbers ... Great ? Would you like a copy of your bank account number posted on the internet ? It can be arranged !

The point is not to be too afraid, but to be responsible. It's far easier to retype your zip code later than to have all of this junk building up on your computer.

ONCE A MONTH OR SO INTERNET HISTORY TO DO LIST --

1. Delete your history, delete your cookies. Delete your off-line content.
2. Empty your Recycle Bin
3. Run Disk Defragmenter ( Start / Programs / Accesories / System Tools / Disk Defragmenter)

This will take a while. You should close EVERYTHING down and leave the computer alone for the 5-30 minutes this takes. It's a good thing to do before you go to bed or before you leave for work.

You should perform the above steps approximately monthly or more frequently.

VIRUS STUFF AND SEARCH HISTORIES / COOKIES

Never, ever update your anti-virus definitions before you clear out your computer as per above.

It's also a very good thing NOT to rely too much on automatic updates ... Sometimes, again, about once a month or so, you'll want to MANUALLY update your virus defintions. If something isn't right, you'll have at least an opportunity to see that it isn't. Too many times, people believe that their defintions are being kept current, when it's simply been bombing/crashing in the middle of the night and exiting without doing anything. This is so simple that I still can't believe people don't know this: As a former hacker, what do you honestly think the very first thing I'm would do to your computer was ? Duh, Disable your auto-updating !!!

SPYWARE / ADWARE

Nasty stuff. Creeps in everywhere. There are a number of free utilities available. I encourage you to try them and throw a few bucks their way for the registered version if you, like I have, found them to be worth their weight in gold.

FYI: Many Spyware programs can't survive very long on a clean history ...

You can Google or Yahoo search for them:

Spybot and Spyware Blaster

Ad-Aware by Lava Soft

Hi-Jack This !

Your choice of Anti-Virus software is up to you. I'm a Norton man myself, but McAfee and some others are tolerable. Sometimes, if you're not the biggest dog in the yard, it might be well advised to have the resources of the biggest Anti-Virus giant out there.

There are a number of free utiilities for managing your Cookies, Temp Folders, and such at:

http://www.iamnotageek.com

Some really great utilities on this site include "System Clean Up", "What's Running" and "Empty Temp Folders" among others. I use a combination of all of these as some will catch things that other's don't.

This is worth a look -- You can learn a lot there.

SO ONCE A MONTH -- PAY A LITTLE ATTENTION TO YOUR PC !

If you own a MAC -- I'm happy for you. You got the virus you paid for.

Answer 3

The toolbar search: Click the Pencil menu. Then, select 'Clear recent searches.' In Internet Explorer, go to Tools >>Internet Options >>when the box pops up, click 'Delete History.'

Answer 4

If you double click in the box...it will show all the things you have typed in. Just use the mouse or the arrows to highlight what you want to erase and click delete. If you use the mouse...just move your mouse over the selection...don't click on it. Clicking on it will put it in the box like you want to search for it.

Answer 5

◙ Clear Browser History ◙

◙ For Internet Explorer TOOLS > INTERNET OPTIONS > GENERAL TAB > CLEAR HISTORY BUTTON

◙ For Firefox users go to Tools/Options and click the "Privacy" tab. Click the + next to "History" to expand it. Just hit the "Clear" button

◙ For Netscape, go to Edit/Preferences. Under the "Navigator" section, you'll see a History section. Hit the "Clear History" button

◙ For Opera Users Go to "Edit" menu and select "Preferences". Select "Navigator" under the "Category" listing. Select "Clear History" in the "History" area. Click "OK" to erase history.

◙ Privacy Guard--Very important! Read Everything here.
http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard/

◙◙ Clear History In Toolbars ◙◙

◙ Yahoo Toolbar ◙
► http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/toolbar/toolbar-10.html

◙ Google Toolbar ◙
► http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?answer=9271

◙ Many software products have HISTORY in them. Read about them here.
► http://www.milincorporated.com/a-delete-history.html

Answer 6

Yahoo toolbar has a pencil. click that for options and one is "clear search history"

Answer 7

go to tools, internet options, content and clear forms. Once you've done this untick all the boxes that say use autocomplete for forms, passwords etc.

Answer 8

Click on the pencil icon, and then click, "clear search history"..

Answer 9

that doesnt work i had to buy (webroots window washer). its the best software ithat ive seen, its cleans alot of stuff on your comuter for ever!

Answer 10

The ROCK ganna says one thing, ask another question..