Do you clean your index.dat file in IE?

Just curious. Does anyone clear this? How often? Using what method? Software? or just manually ?

 

Huh? What's Internet Explorer?

 

Window Washer works well !!

regards,
bill

 

Lots of freeware and commercial software do it (spider seems to be most recommended for freeware). But you need to restart correct? I've read that you can actually log
on as another admin user to kill the file but I never tried it.

I personally do it manually with eraser every time my computer starts up.

 

Doing it manually.

 

Yes! Internet Sweeper here.

Set to "delete files in use" upon reboot so when I do a 'Sweep' of cookies, cache, etc. and after that [maybe even up to 1 week], a reboot clears the Index.dat back to its original 32Kb size.

 

Yes. All index.dat files cleared every few weeks, using Spider, followed by a restart.

I realise, though, that Spider deletes only the contents, and not the index.dat headers.

Gordon

 

Isn´t Internet Explorer a spyware

 

What's the difference? I've cleared it manually and using spider and even with other software, everytime I get the same file size after cleaning

 

I clean using Bear Delete, which only works with W98/SE, but it cleans history, temp, index.dat, recent office files and shell icon cache. It is a very fast batch file and is free. Highly recommended over at DSLR and used by many there.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1870282~root=security,1~mode=flat


- Added URL tags to fix link

 

Just curious, Gordon. What OS are you using? I used to use Spider with 98SE. I loved that program. I loved it so much, that I tried it when I 'upgraded' to XP. All of a sudden, I noticed something very unusual - every time I tried to access "System Information" (one of the ONLY utilities MS provides that I really like) the freakin "Help Center" would come up. At first I just figured I clicked a wrong link or something. But the same thing happened when I clicked directly on the msinfo32.exe file! I posted about that problem at BBR and Vampirefo came up with the solution: It was a .dat file that Spider was messing with in XP. He did a lot of detective work to figure that one out. So my question to you and anyone else running Spider on XP (and possibly W2K as well) is whether or not you've ever noticed that problem. If you're running XP, and Spider, and haven't ever tried to access "System Information", try it and see what happens.

sk

 

SPYWARE. Hell, it's MALWARE. But what can I say? I still haven't found any other browser that I like better. But I am always looking.

sk

 

Hi JayK. A while ago, I read somewhere that Spider clears the index.dat log files -including the detailed information contained in these logs - but leaves the log headers intact. Thus, the 'cleared' file will be about 32K after a reboot. (My PC has four separate index.dat files.)
I have never tried to delete these files manually, because I thought this couldn't be done while Windows was running.

Gordon

 

Hi sk. Sorry to hear that Spider has been messing up your files on Windows XP. I haven't experienced this problem because I'm still running my antiquated Windows 98 on a Pentium II with a 450MHz processor! I hope you can find an alternative to Spider. I know there is a program that can open and display the full contents of the index.dat files (History Reader 5), and can delete the logs as well. However, it's a $50 shareware product, and I don't know if it's compatible with Windows XP.

Gordon

 

Hi Gorden

I thought that regardless of the method used for cleaning, windows will always recreate the index.dat files...

About manually cleaning index.dat (warning I'm not sure abt the accuracy of the info before, experts should correct me)

You can delete the index.dat files manually. As i understand it, under windows as long as explorer.exe is running, you cannot delete index.dat files.

So you either

1)Boot to dos and kill it there

2)Put a bat file that clears the file in the startup folder. Not sure why it works except maybe it loads before explorer.exe
does

3)Create another account with administration previlages (under win2k) and you can delete the index.dat files in another user account.

 

by Krusty: *Isn´t Internet Explorer a spyware *




Hey Krusty.....an all these years I thought is was the M$ os.....javascript:cool()

 

Thanks, Gordon. I kinda miss old Spidey myself sometimes! And yeah, I figured you were running 98SE. I think that's great. In fact, the more I keep running into little surprises with W2K, the more I miss the stability of 98SE. I think all this talk about XP and W2K being so stable is a crock. I almost NEVER crashed with 98SE. I do think W2K is faster, and I like the concept that it's a full 32 bit OS, vs. 16 bit for 98SE. But even after all this time and 3 service packs later, W2K is still a bug ridden piece of garbage. Between the Windows Explorer bugs (i.e. Can't retain settings after the 400th one) and now Internet Explorer, which can't quite negotiate date stamps when it updates so it's a total mess right now, it's a joke. A bad joke, but a joke nonetheless. Meanwhile, my Compaq 98SE hasn't had a single problem in over a year and a half. It reminds me of the way 'fancy sports cars' used to be. They were so finicky you needed another car as a backup to ever be able to get anywhere most of the time. It's a good thing I HAVE that Compaq with an AMD K-6 2 and the 98SE OS, or half the time I'd never be able to even get online to check my email. It serves as a great back up also to help rebuild my Asus333 with the 1 GB of memory and two 80GB HD's with W2K, which is just a big, expensive, fancy piece of crap.
sk

 

That's because Windows automatically re-creates the Index.dat file. It really has been deleted, but re-created and it will be 32Kb after a fresh reboot/re-create until you start surfin, then it will grow in size again.

 

>> I thought that regardless of the method used for cleaning, windows will always recreate the index.dat files... <<

Hi JayK. Absolutely true. Windows will always create a new index.dat file - as Tassie-Devils has pointed out in his post! It just needs to be deleted regularly.

Gordon

 

Hi Gordon

Can I confirm that your statement
"I realise, though, that Spider deletes only the contents, and not the index.dat headers:"

is based on the observation that the size of the index.dat file that is always recreated?

 

Hi JayK. I'm not sure of the relationship between the fact that the index.dat headers are (supposedly) not deleted, and the fact that the recreated index.dat file (following a reboot) starts again about 32k - until the log begins to build up again during subsequent surfing.

Some people seem to believe that the index.dat file(s) are completely deleted, and then recreated afresh at reboot - and perhaps this is true. However, I remember reading somewhere that Spider (and other similar programs) delete the entire index.dat log *contents* but leave the *headers* (URLs?) to each individual log intact. Perhaps someone could shed some further light on this.

Gordon

 

Here is a link to the technical description by the author of Spider. Maybe this will help. I was going to cut/paste it in but it's a little long. But anyone interested can check it out and see what you think.

sk

http://www.fsm.nl/ward/spiderus.html

 

Hi sk.

Many thanks for this link. It seems to provide some useful information on Spider. I'll check it out in more detail later on...

On checking the author's history file, it would seem that the earlier versions of Spider did not remove the URL's in the index.dat file(s). However, in later versions, the author advises that both cookies and URL's are deleted by Spider.

Hopefully, then, Spider should completely delete the entire histories contained in the index.dat files. Sorry for raising unnecessary concerns.

Regards,

Gordon

 

Most of the time, I do it manually, I go by into the option menu in Crazy Browser bar. In fact, I try to do as much as I can without the help of any program. Once in a month, I clear them with the help of a tweak, I always found a little more files in it. Otherwise I do it myself.
Bye ! Uguel

 

With respect to the original question: Yes.
I use that excellent piece of software IEClean ( www.nsclean.com ); the cleaning is done with every reboot.
IEClean is always running here.
For Netscape users there is his brother NSClean.
Both are not free, but make no mistake: in my humble opinion they are worth every cent.

BTW: I also have Window Washer, which is also a nice program.