You need to consider the security and privacy of your data and browsing habits when you share your computer with others or when you use a publically-accessible computer and user account, such as in a public library or at an airport kiosk.
All browsers keep records of where you have been on the Internet and even store webpages and other files, such as graphics, in a local folder known as the “cache”. The cache folder can thus contain sensitive information. Similarly to the cache, the history of the sites you have visited may remain on a shared computer and account. If you do not want other users to know about the sites you have visited, you need to clear this type of data.
This topic provides some tips for maintaining security and privacy for your information and browsing habits when you use Opera on a shared computer, listed below.
In Opera versions 10.5x onwards, private tabs or windows allow you to browse without leaving any trace of the websites you visit. When you close a private tab or window, the history, cache and data related to that tab or window are deleted.
Note that if you deliberately save data to the computer or download a file, you will need to specifically delete it if you want to keep it private.
For more information about private browsing, see the “Private tabs” section in Opera Help — Tabs.
When searching directly in the address field, a history of websites you have viewed displays in a drop-down menu from the address field. If you want to protect your privacy, you can turn this off by following the steps below:
If you do not want Opera to store your history, go to and change the number in the “Addresses” option to 0.
If you are not using the private browsing functionality, you can still protect your privacy by configuring Opera to clear the history and cache or other type of private data when you close the browser. To do this, go to . The default setting is to clear all cookies, cached items, history and tabs; however, you can more specifically select what you want to clear by selecting the “Detailed Options” button.
In the Detailed Options dialog, the “Use cookies to trace password-protected pages” option uses the cookies saved to remove password-protected pages from your cache.
Cookies are often used to simplify logins, remember personal information in web forms and so on and should not be passed on to the next user. The easiest means of ensuring that they are not passed on is to clear all cookies before closing Opera. To do this, go to and opt to clear all new cookies on exit.
In the same dialog, you can make Opera tag the cookies of the password-protected sites that you viewed after you logged in and automatically delete them from the cache when you close the browser. To do this, just check the option to “Use cookies to trace password-protected pages”. The web addresses of these pages will never appear in your global history, and they will be removed from your list of typed-in addresses. Note that this option does not remove the cookies themselves.
For more information, see the Cookies tips topic.
You can set the cache to “Empty on exit”, which means that it will be cleared when Opera is closed. To do this, go to and check the “Empty on exit” option.
If you have downloaded any files, you may also want to clear the list that is displayed in the download manager, which is part of the browser history. This also applies if you were using private browsing, which does not prevent you from downloading files and therefore listing them. To clear the download list, from the menu, go to , select any files listed and press the Delete key.
Note: This does not delete the actual file that was downloaded. The file must be deleted from the computer separately.
If you use the password manager to save your passwords, you may want to disable it when sharing a computer or using a public one. Go to .
If you use the password manager to save your personal data for auto-completion in online forms, you can clear this information in .
If you have saved any sessions — collections of tabs — you can delete them by going to . Select the session(s) you want to clear and click “Delete”.
If you use your own user JavaScript, or someone else’s, you may want to clear the “My JavaScript files” field. To do this, go to . Note that User JavaScript is not loaded on secure pages.
If you are installing Opera on a multi-user computer, opt for separate user directories during the install if this is possible. This makes Opera use separate files for history, bookmarks, and other data for each user. Note that if other users have administrator privileges, they may still be able to access the files for other users.
For more information about installing Opera for many users, see the System Administrators Handbook.
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