Navigate to the PrivateSurf Control Panel on the Settings tab to customize the AOL path. Click the folder next to the edit box to bring up a directory finder window and find the location where AOL 9.0 files are kept. A recent test identified the following path, which may be different on your machine: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\C_America Online 9.0\organize\. Once you set the AOL9 organize directory, click on the AOL Browser tab and check ‘Sweep them all’. You should also select the AOL profile or profiles you want to clear and then can click ‘Analyze Risk’ to see if it detects the drop down list (it should say something other than 0 bytes). Alternatively, you can click ‘Sweep’ to clear it.

AOL doesn't save this information to disk until you close AOL. Close AOL, sweep your history with PrivateSurf, and then re-launch AOL.

Close PrivateSurf (right click the PrivateSurf icon in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, click 'shutdown PrivateSurf' and then select 'yes'). Make sure all your Internet browsers are closed.

Click Start -> Programs -> PrivateSurf -> Uninstall PrivateSurf

Internet Explorer is tightly integrated with Windows. Windows locks some of the Internet Explorer files so they cannot be deleted in Windows. Internet Explorer uses three main Index.dat files (Cache, Cookies, and History). These files are locked by Windows and cannot normally be deleted. There is an option to remove the Internet Explorer Index Files on Windows Start located on the Settings tab (requires reboot). Windows also uses some files, which contain no history information, to control the look of some file folders. These files are not deleted.

The PrivateSurf Service allows PrivateSurf to access Internet Explorer AutoComplete Forms data on Windows 2000 and XP. The data is locked by Windows and only accessible via the SYSTEM user account. The PrivateSurf service removes the locked AutoComplete Forms data.

PrivateSurf detects which browsers you have open. When you close all browsers of that browser type (IE, AOL, Netscape, or Opera) PrivateSurf clears the selected history information for that browser type automatically.

When PrivateSurf performs an automatic operation, such as blocking a pop-up or sweeping history, it shows a small tooltip window in the lower right-hand corner. When ‘AutoSweep in Stealth Mode’ is enabled, the tooltip window is not displayed for automatic operations.

When the 'Boss Key' is pressed (CTRL + ALT + SPACE) all open browser windows will be hidden. When you press the ‘Boss Key” again, the browsers will be visible again. This allows you to quickly prevent others from seeing your current surfing activity.

The 'Stealth Key' (CTRL + ALT + Z) will hide and unhide the PrivateSurf icon from the Windows SystemTray (lower right hand corner) so others will not be able to see that the program is running on your computer.

PrivateSurf uses a Browser Helper Object to detect when Internet Explorer tries to open a new window. PrivateSurf will automatically stop all new Internet Explorer windows from opening. If Stealth Mode is not enabled, PrivateSurf will pop-up a tooltip window, letting you know when a pop-up has been blocked. If you would like to open a new window you can hold down the CTRL key and click the link to open it in a new window. To suspend the pop-up blocker, toggle the Scroll Lock key. When the Scroll Lock key is enabled, the pop-up blocker will not function, and new windows will be allowed to open.

The suggested number of times to overwrite files by the US Department of Defense is 3. The PrivateSurf default value is 21. The maximum setting is 99, but please be advised that 99 is the slowest setting.

Under Windows 2000/XP, you can set the transparency of the PrivateSurf window with this setting. When it is set to be partially transparent you can see through it to view other windows and the desktop.

PrivateSurf sets most registry settings to blank before deleting the setting so that the data is completely removed from the registry even if Windows does not immediately remove the key itself.

For added security, PrivateSurf does rename each file to a random number after each overwrite of the file.