History items after deletion

[Aine]

Hi! Is there any way to view items that have been deleted from the History? I use both IE and Netscape, so if there's a difference, please let me know that too. Thanks in advance.

[BlobFisk]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Aine!

Not easily! Once deleted the system allows files to be overwritten. Things are not actually deleted, the OS merely marks the area on the hard drive available again.

There is a chance that your history may still be there. The history usually lives in:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\History

But on older (Windows based) operating systems it could be in:

C:\WINDOWS\HISTORY
C:\WINDOWS\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES
C:\WINDOWS\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES\CONTENT.IE5
C:\WINDOWS\OFFLINE WEB PAGES
C:\WINDOWS\DOWNLOADED PROGRAM FILES

Best of luck!

[tedster]

I think that browser history may be easier to recover than regular files, which certainly may be overwritten, as BlobFisk describes. As I remember, IE, for instance, also maintains a parallel but hidden file with a .dat extension that is NOT "cleaned" when you delete regular history. Because it's a still existing (but hidden) file, it doesn't get overwritten.

In fact, I've heard that actually eliminating browser history information from your hard drive is a bit challenging, and special utilities are sold to make sure the drive is swept clean. But you want to go the other way, so...

Try a search on phrases like <recover browser history> and <recover Netscape history>. You will uncover some helpful utilities.Most cost a few dollars, but you also may find some freeware.