BleepingComputer.com: Block Temporary Internet Files?

I haven't accepted cookies for quite sometime now and find that this is surprisingly easy to administrate. It's hardly any trouble at all. Blocking nearly all cookies and accepting just a few regulars by adding them "manually" resulted in a significant reduction of malware infections. I often search images for days and days and days - a bullet proof way to get loads of malware into your PC. And my security programs are not bad at all.

All this picture searching also results in a slow PC. Tons of material ends up in my cached folder. So I was wondering: can I block all access to Temporary Internet Files the same way I blocked all the cookies? I really don't need a copy of each and every site I go to. I sometimes feel that I store a copy of half the Internet in my cache. I sometimes visit almost a 1000 sites a day - sites that I don't intend to visit again. And images have big file sizes more often that not. They sit in my cache even though I have no use for them. I just visited the site. Also it is a pain in the behind when you land on a big site. Some blogs have hundreds of posts on one long page. IE takes forever to download such a big blog to Temporary Internet Files. It would make life easier if I didn't have to drag all this useless material around. And the malware hidden in it.

So: how can I disable IE's cache function in XP Home? Is there a way?

Check out Sandboxie
It's free and does all that stuff automatically. When you install it can create a button to run the default browser "sandboxed" meaning that anything that writes to the hard drive is redirected to a folder inside the sandbox. You can set options so that if you download something you want to keep you can either manually copy it out of the sandbox or be prompted for certain folders(some features may be in the paid version but the free version does all you need for system protection.)

When you quit all programs that are running sandboxed you can set it to automatically delete everything in the sandbox. This way you can set it to accept all cookies if you want. I have my browsers (Firefox and Opera) set to accept cookies but delete them when I close the browser.
For what you are doing Sandboxie would make things a lot easier.

Sounds a bit like what BOClean is doing but Sandboxie sounds more thorough. I had hoped to find a way to just turn the sh*t offfffff. Is a new program really necessary?

I've heard of it being turned off - but have never seen it done. I'd expect that your browsing speed would be significantly reduced, since each page would have to reload the entire page each time you either refreshed or moved away from the page.

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So this would happen with every page you visited (if you disabled the Temporary Internet Files).

I'd suggest, as an alternative, that you tell IE to delete your browsing history when you close it.

Hmmm...Interestingly, you can turn it off (in IE7). Go to Tools...Internet Options....Browsing History Settings button.
There's lot's of nifty settings the you can experiment with there (to turn it off set the "Disk space to use" to 0)

Thanks usasma, I'll try that. The point is that I never return to a site when I'm doing such a wast amount of research. Sometimes I really need to go back but having visited hundreds or thousands of pages I don't have a chance. When you hunt for a certain picture you use the same search terms. So a PC search in temp files returns a useless list of hundreds of sites.

Besides: you can store your browsing history on your privat Google account. Simultaneously - it just updates itself. Brilliant. No more garbage in your PC.

It won't allow 0. "Disk space to use" can only go down to 8. For some strange reason.

I'd set it at 8 and see how it impacts your browsing.
Another idea is to make the Temporary Internet Files directory (and sub-containers) "Read Only".

It's faster now. Really. I'll try that other suggestion also. Thanks, usasma.

Other suggestions are still welcome - i'm in an experimental mood today.

It seems to me that this makes no difference. IE still behaves like it used to...

You may want to try an alternative browser. Firefox (with which I'm familiar) is very customizable. I've heard good things about the other major players also (Safari, Opera, Chrome).

Year, I know. But Safari and Chrome have safety issues even though the companies deny it. That points to Opera or FireFox. And I actually have them. But I never really became a fan of them. So if IE could be costumized I'd prefer that...

ePost, on Jan 4 2009, 04:05 PM, said:

If you really love IE try Maxthon. It's a tabbed browser based on IE with a bunch of plugins or addons written by Maxthon users. I do Firefox myself but Maxthon has some good points too. Way more customizable than IE.

It's also free as are all the plugins afaik.

Thanks MilesAhead. I'll take a look at it. :-)

Instructions for disabling your Browser Cache.
Internet Explorer 7.x

1. Select Tools > Internet Options
2. Under the Browsing History section select the "Settings" button
3. On the "Temporary Internet files and History Settings" window make sure that under
Check for newer versions of stored pages you select the radio button entitled "Every time I visit the webpage"
4. Select OK
5. Select OK again
6. Exit IE and restart to enable the change

I have that already. I'm in the news business so I have to make sure that all research material is updated. Never the less the cache fills up with vast amounts of old browsing history. Which I really don't need for more that 95 pct. of the time.