- How-To Booklet
- 1. How to protect your computer from malware and hackers
- 2. How to protect your information from physical threats
- 3. How to create and maintain secure passwords
- 4. How to protect the sensitive files on your computer
- 5. How to recover from information loss
- 6. How to destroy sensitive information
- 7. How to keep your Internet communication private
- 8. How to remain anonymous and bypass censorship on the Internet
- Glossary
- Hands-On Guides
- avast! - anti-virus
- Spybot - anti-spyware
- Comodo Firewall
- KeePass - secure password storage
- TrueCrypt - secure file storage
- Cobian Backup
- Recuva - file recovery
- Eraser - secure file removal
- CCleaner - secure file deletion and work session wiping
- Riseup - secure email service
- Pidgin - secure instant messaging
- VaultletSuite - secure email client
- Thunderbird - secure email client
- Firefox - secure Web browser
- Tor - anonymity and circumvention
- Portable Security
CCleaner - secure file deletion and work session wiping
Submitted by admin on Thu, 11/13/2008 - 23:05
CCleaner is an easy-to-use and efficient program, essential to protecting your digital privacy and security. By permanently deleting (or wiping) your browser history, cookies, other temporary files created during your work session and free space on the disk, CCleaner limits the ways in which hostile or malicious parties can monitor your work habits and preferences or infect your system.
Installing CCleaner
- Read the brief Hands-on Guide Introduction
- Click the CCleaner icon below to open www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds download page.
- In the 'CCleaner - Slim' section click the 'Download' button
- Save the 'ccsetup_slim.exe' to your computer, then find it and Double click on it to launch the installation program.
- Read the 'Installation instructions' in the next section before you continue
- After you have successfully installed CCleaner you may delete the installation program from your computer
CCleaner:
Homepage
Computer Requirements
- All Windows Versions
Version used in this guide
- 2.33
License
- Freeware
Required Reading
How-to Booklet chapter 6. How to Destroy Sensitive Information
Level: 1: Beginner, 2: Average, 3: Intermediate, 4: Experienced, 5: Advanced
Time required to start using this too: 15 minutes
What you will get in return:
- The ability to permanently delete traces of your activities and temporary files stored on your computer.
- The ability to wipe the free space on disks connected to your computer
- The ability to clean up the Windows Registry
- The ability to control what programs are run when you computer starts
GNU Linux, Mac OS and other Microsoft Windows Compatible Programs
Another excellent temporary file removal and shredder tool compatible with GNU Linux and Microsoft Windows is BleachBit. BleachBit lets you wipe temporary files in 70 of the most popular applications, operating system temporary files and free hard disk space. An open-source program with a portable version, BleachBit is available in 32 languages. Ubuntu Linux users can in addition refer to the guide Cleaning up all those unnecessary junk files… to learn about cleaning your system.
Mac OS users will appreciate free tools from Titanium’s Software: OnyX and Maintenance to erase traces of your work session. To securely wipe your Trash go to Finder application and choose menu: Finder > Secure Empty Trash... You can choose to always securely wipe Trash by going to Finder's preferences Advance tab and checking Empty Trash securely. To wipe free space on the disk start Disk Utility system application, choose the disk partition, choose Erase tab and click on Erase Free Space.. button.
1.1 Things you should know about this tool before you start
The default settings on your computer system or an Internet browser automatically collect and create a data trail that a knowledgeable hostile or malicious party can follow - not unlike a hunter with its prey. Every time you use an Internet browser or word processor, or program, temporary data and files are generated and stored on your computer system. It could also generate lists of recently viewed documents or web pages. For example, whenever you type a web address into your Internet browser, a list of those addresses beginning with that/those letter(s) may be displayed as follows:
Figure 1: An Internet browser address bar displaying different URLs.
Although browser histories may be convenient, they also let someone identify the web sites you have visited. Moreover, your recent activities may be exposed by temporary data collected from images that appear on those web sites, including email messages or information typed into Internet forms.
To remove temporary data created every time you use a program, you would have to open each individual program directory, identify and then manually delete its temporary program files from there. CCleaner simply displays a list of programs and lets you choose the program(s) from which all temporary files should be deleted.
Important: Although CCleaner only erases temporary files, and not the actual documents saved on your computer, it is strongly recommended that you keep an up-to-date backup of your documents (please refer to the How-to Booklet chapter 5. How to Recover from Information Loss for more information on how to perform a backup).
After running CCleaner you may lose your all browser and recent document histories, and saved passwords. However, this is precisely the point of this tool - to minimize the different ways of infecting or monitoring your computer system.
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