Search bar drop downs...How do I clear them?
 

I am sure that this is either a dumb question or a repeat (probably both). But, I don't know what to call it, so my searches have not found anything.

My parents may be moving in with me for a few months as part of a move and there are certain parts of my electronic life I don't want them stumbling upon. I have created another user account that is password protected and moved my jpeg files there. I am not sure if I will be able to undo this with my questionable computer skills, but that is for later. What is more important is that when I start to type something for Google to find (whether on the Firefox bar or on my homepage) I get a series of previous searches, and some of them I would prefer my mother not see. Is there a way to clear these, because I can't find it.

In IE:Go to tools, internet options, content, then under personal information, click AutoComplete and then ClearForms. That will clear all of your searches.

FireFox: go to tools, options, privacy, then clear history and saved form information.

You could automate this a FireFox extention called x that will clear everything at once http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#x (suggested in another thread).

This shouldn't be a problem if you're using XP, fast user switching with multiple accounts should make it so they won't be able to view anything personal. Just set them up with a guest account instead of giving them priviledges to yours.

BTW, clearing history for IE was covered on the thread http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...irefox+history

In addition to that thread, there's a great application called Crap Cleaner. Works with both IE and Firefox, and lots of other applications. You can set it to run automatically on each startup, or run it manually. Freeware, no spyware. Just be careful using the Issues tab; if you don't know what you are doing, you can really fuck up your computer.

Thanks for your help guys. I knew it had to be fairly simple.