Visiting web pages –can anyone know the URL someone visit?

Question

In media tight society, alot of people breathe by visiting independent foreign sites.
So,can the ISP or anyone in anyway know the site a particular person/pc visits?
Note: sites visited are not rubbish ones.They - blogs/forums/news sites.
:Assume no spyware/virus in PC
:Not using proxy

Answer 1

Yes.

Anyone who physically goes to your PC can look at the history, the temporary Internet files and the cookies to see where you have been. (You can clear those by opening Internet Explorer, clicking on Tools in the menu, going to Internet Options and clicking the buttons to Clear (or Delete) Files, Cookies and History. You can also set the "Days to keep history" to zero, and then everytime you exit Internet Explorer, the history is cleared.

While you are on the Internet, it is possbile for websites to access any cookies on your PC and to see where you have been. You can prevent your computer from accepting cookies (Tools> Internet Options > Security tab > Internet Icon in upper left > Default Level in lower right > Drag slide bar to High) but many web sites will not function with cookies disabled.

Finally, your ISP sees all and knows all. They keep a record of every site your computer visits. However, that information is protected by privacy laws. And with the number of people going to sites at any given moment, no ISP as the manpower, or the need, to monitor that information. So does anybody normally look at it? Nope. It is only there for reference if there is a problem. It is usually held for 30 days or less, depending on ISP.

Since you said "no spyware", I assume you also mean no hackers. (And yes they can too - if they want)

Answer 2

Yes, they can. The traffic from the website is sent in the form of IP datagrams or packets. Each packet has both the source and destination address. So, if someone's interested, they can look for datagrams that have an "interesting" source address (the news site) and then record the destination address (you). They could then keep a list of the sites that you visit.

The resources needed to do this on a large scale are formidable. But it's certainly possible, and is being done in many countries in some form or another.

Answer 3

Your URL request sent from browser is sent over the network in clear text. ISP of course can find out where you go. Even anyone in between can tell just by sniffing your packets. Even other website you normally visit can keep track using cookies

Answer 4

Yes
Anyone sitting at the machine can see an users history.
Someone that knows how to access your computer (hackers so forth) can go and look at your history as well.
In todays age you really should get some sort of software pretection.