Explorer Temporary Files

[Guest]

What would cause temp. files to disappear besides me actually deleting them?
Has anyone encountered this problem? Several days ago a couple of days worth
of files were missing. Yesterday the entire file was blank.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Why is this a problem? They're not called "temporary" for nothing. TIF
was created to make your browsing faster, not as a form of long term
storage. They can be deleted in many ways, for example: when the TIF
folder reaches capacity, when History exceeds the specified number of
days, when IE is setup to remove them and when users install protection
software (antivirus, antispyware, firewall, cache cleaners, etc.) that
is setup to remove them.

 

[Guest]

The reason is for tracking purposes of my kids. I am being told that no one
purposely deleted them so I'm trying to understand how they might have been
deleted without someone physically doing it. It just seems very odd that
several days ago in the entire file only a couple of days were missing when I
know I was on the internet and then the last time I checked EVERYTHING was
missing. I'm just wondering if it is possible for the files to disappear some
other way. If I run a spyware program could this delete days worth of temp
files? Could it delete the entire file? Thanks for your help.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

A spyware scanner could, if so configured, delete all TIF.

I understand your motivations, so let me be the first to tell you that
TIF is a very poor way to track where your kids have been on the
internet. It was not designed for that purpose. It will erase places
where your kids have been, and include places where your kids have not been.

If you want to track where your kids have actually visited on the
internet - and these days, unfortunately, parents need to do this - you
need third party parent control software. There is tons of this
available, although I can't recommend a particular program yet, since my
boy isn't old enough for it to be an issue.

Read the reviews on the internet and try out a few programs. Many have
time-limited free trials. It will definitely be worth your investment in
time and money.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help Ted. Can you be more specific about your statements that
TIF is not a good way to track where a person has visited. That it will erase
places you have been and show places that maybe you havent. Thanks again for
your help.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Sure, but first let me tell you about some parental control software I
recently read about called SafeEyes that was highly reviewed by PC
Magazine, a resource inwhich I generally have a lot of confidence.
SafeEyes operates on an annual subscription, currently 49.95 per year.

TIF - known generically as a browser cache - was first created back in
the days of dialup, to store media content and scripts from web pages,
so if you went back to a web page you had previously visited you
wouldn't have to download them all over again. That's still its purpose,
even in these days of broadband. Today it's also used to cache
('temporarily store') software downloads - so you can continue to do
work while software is downloading - and large media files, like music
videos, so they'll play continuously without interruptions to download
additional bytes of data.

TIF has other uses too, but all along the same line: to cache items for
a better user experience. By its very definition, cached items are for
temporary use. Once the user is done with the cached files there's no
reason to hold onto them any longer, so they're available to be
overwritten without further ceremony.

Now you can see why TIF is a poor way to see where anyone's been on the
internet. For one thing, it's being overwritten on a more or less
continuous basis, based upon the settings in the browser. After all,
once you're done browsing you don't need the cached items, so why not
free up some disk space? Most protective software (antivirus,
antispyware, Windows' Disk Cleanup Wizard, etc.) will offer to delete
the cache for the sdame reason. And browsers can also be set to not
cache data from encrypted pages. This is a security measure.

Then consider this: Web pages appear to be a single presentation, but in
fact they are typically cobbled together from many different servers. So
let's say you kid went to the front page of the New York Times. Sounds
pretty respectable, right? Only the New York Times accepts advertising
from Orbitz, and maybe Orbitz is running a special on Bermuda vacations
and to help sell vacations their ad features a huge picture of a woman
in a barely-there bikini. That picture is in the browser's cache, but is
that why your kid was surfing the web?