How do I "clean" my computer hard drive and other components to ensure
my privacy, especially web sites visited, so the next user has little
to none of my private information and files, yet still has a working
computer?

Hi, 

The trick to this is finding all the spots things are saved in, which
is quite a little check list.

On a link below (the first one) is a Utility called Clean Disk 2002,
which does a very good job of finding all the files and getting rid of
them, including your IE history, the cookies and all the temporary
files. Their main website is
http://www.aesoftware.com/

Most people don't need file shredders, but there are a few on those
links below as well. Unless you think someone is snooping your
hard-drive at hacker level, (hacker meaning someone very good at what
they do) then don't bother. If it really needs to be gone from your
hard-drive, then you need a shredder of some type. The reason for this
is that windows doesn't really delete a file, it marks it as deleted.
The data remains on the hard drive until it is over written several
times. Some data can be recovered even after a drive is formatted
completely (though it is probably pretty thin). A shredder program
overwrites the area on the disk that the file occupied, several times
with garbage data. Sometimes these programs are called "thrashers"
which is a more descriptive term for what they really do. Depending on
the size of the files, this can take a very long time, and as I said,
most people don't need this level of security, but it is available.

For utilities that do this for you check out these sites :

Freeware Arena Clean, Repair Optimizing Freeware
http://www.freewarearena.com/clean.html

Privacy
http://www.e2chameleon.btinternet.co.uk/privacy2.htm


thanks, 

webadept-ga

For regular maintenence of shared computers I use a handy program
called SpyBot. It is shareware and can be checked out at:

http://spybot.eon.net.au/

It doesn't nuke your drive, but it does include a shredder tool. It
will check for cookies, changes to your registry, hijackers, bots, and
other security problems; plus it pulls up all the Windows files that
track your usage and allows you to clean their cache. Just be sure to
go into the "restore" tool and purge what you deleted, or someone can
just go there to see what you deleted! It is a handy program that
comes in many languages. I have used it for six months and rate it
highly for a simple freeware download.

Meego