With our work and personal lives becoming increasingly merged with technology, most of us are more than familiar with the internet’s most fundamental tool: the almighty browser. Over time, they’ve become smarter to make surfing as convenient as possible.

Browsers remember the pages we visit, our passwords and form entries, and also download common files (such as cookies that are stored locally) which cut web page loading times. But if surfing data (such as those for search, favourites, logins and preferences) is actually pretty small – then what’s the problem?

Answer: the accumulation of them over time (just imagine the thousands of web pages you visit each year). With an overcrowded Search & Browser History, your browser – and sometimes device – can become sluggish, simply because it’s saturated with unnecessary files. It can also lead to page functionality issues (due to outdated cookie and cache data).

With the added risk of, for instance, third party cookies and malware potentially plaguing your internet activities, what reason is there to not hit that delete button every now and then?

Alright, let’s get to it. Here’s how to wipe your Browser History clean (using every major browser):

Edge

Click the ‘THREE DOT’ icon from the top right > hover over HISTORY, then click CLEAR BROWSING DATA > select timeframe and check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click CLEAR NOW.

Firefox

Click the ‘LIBRARY’ (STACKED BOOKS) icon from the top right > then hover over HISTORY and click CLEAR RECENT HISTORY > select timeframe and check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click OK.

Internet Explorer:

Click the TOOLS (‘GEAR’) icon from the top right > hover over SAFETY and then click DELETE BROWSING HISTORY > check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click DELETE.

Safari

Click SAFARI from the toolbar > CLEAR HISTORY > select timeframe and check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click CLEAR HISTORY.

Chrome

Click the ‘THREE DOT’ icon from the top right > hover over HISTORY and click HISTORY > CLEAR BROWSING HISTORY DATA on the left > select timeframe and check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click CLEAR DATA.

Opera

Click the MENU (‘O’) icon in the top left > hover over HISTORY and click CLEAR BROWSING DATA > select timeframe and check the boxes by the items you want to delete > finally click CLEAR BROWSING DATA.