Have you got nosey parents? Like mine, who go through your bedroom, looking for evidence to prove your sexuality? I think if you haven't then you are very lucky. But if you have, you are lucky to come across this site. Here is how to keep your emails, and the websites you visit private...
Emails
As you will see from reading my life story, one of the ways my parents found out about me was by reading some of my private emails. Here's how to stop them:
Set up an online email address, using Yahoo, Hotmail, Another.com, or any other well known email companies. They will provide you with a secure email account with password protection!
If, however, you have to use a computer-based email address (such as one with Outlook), then you can try to hide messages like so...
Go into the message rules (In Outlook Express, that is in the tools menu) and set up some rules. For example, you could have it like I had, where every message containing the word "<hide>" is hidden from view. You could also have it so that every email from a particular person is hidden away. This works okay if your parents are technophobes, but if they know anything about computers, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. After all, it's one way my parents found out...
Note: If you DO want to continue using non-web-based email [such as Outlook or Netscape] then there is a way to stop anyone from reading them.. simply use the encoder on my site - this will jumble up the email so it is unreadable, and the only people who can read it are those with the decoder key code, and access to my site. Check it out, instructions are there!
Web Sites / Pictures
Don't you just hate it how you've typed in something like "http://www.gay.com" and it appears in the recent addresses drop down menu, and the history folder, and the temporary internet files and... Well here's how to stop it from knowing you've ever been there...
I only know how to do this with IE, and possibly only with v4 and above. But follow the steps and it should work...
1. Okay, you've just finished looking at the page and are ready to come off. But you don't want anyone to know you've been there. First, let's get rid of the incriminating pictures...
Whilst still in your browser, click Tools and Internet Options. Then click on the "Advanced" tab. Don't be intimidated by all this writing, and don't click on anything you're not sure of, but just scroll down until you see "Empty Temporary Internet Folder when Browser is Closed", under "Security". Tick the box and click okay. Now, every time you close the browser, the pictures will be deleted.
To delete them right away, click Tools and Internet Options. Then click Delete Files, and click okay.
2. The pictures are gone, but what about the History Folder? No problem,... Once again, click Tools and Internet Options. Under the "General" tab, look for History. Change the number in the box to a 0, and click "Clear History". Now the History folder should delete itself every time you turn off your computer, but to be safe, click the "Clear History" button every time you have finished on the internet.
3. If you have a username for, say Hotmail, that is something very obvious, such as "gayboy78@hotmail.com", then you will need to stop the computer from remembering it. Try going back to your mail account, just before you log off the 'net, and where it says "User name", type in the first letter of your user name (i.e. "g"). If a box pops up underneath it with, i.e. "gayboy78", then press the down arrow once to highlight it, and click delete. Gone.
Alternatively..
4. Never let Internet Explorer remember your username or password for anything! Do this by turning OFF Auto complete. This can be found in Tools | Internet Options and under the Content tab, press the Auto Complete button. Then un-check all the boxes!
5. One last thing, very clever parents will know exactly where to look for evidence of where you have been, and even if your parents aren't computer literate, you should always do this:
Open C:/Windows/Temporary Internet Files and browse through the cookies. A cookie is a piece of information stored by some websites, they look like .txt files. any with incriminating names (e.g. "Cookie:default@gay.com") should be deleted, although it should be safe to just delete the entire contents of that folder, but don't quote me on that.
NOTE: Get Tweak UI from my downloads page and see the "paranoia" tab.. it's ace!
Now you can go anywhere and do anything on the 'net without your parents knowing! Have fun!
If not, you could always come out to them! Click here for information about coming out.
Click here for the email encoder.
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Page description: Tips on how to stop nosey parents / other relatives / friends from finding out what sites you've been onto and what emails you have got!
Last site update:
Wednesday, 23 May 2001
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