Is it possible to...

[Denise_uk]

...set a default on Internet Explorer which requires a password to be entered before the Internet history can be deleted? Thanks.

[Ethel]

I don't know of such a thing but try googling IE history password and see if anything turns up.

Alternatively you could have your own user account and password protect it.

[Tanty]

Your best bet is to create a user account for yourself only.

[scaniavabis]

My guess is that Denise wants to see what someone else has been looking at rather than safeguard her own history.

[Denise_uk]

You got me scaniavabis :o)

It's actually my 11 year old son I'm wanting to keep a closer eye on. He has his laptop downstairs for monitoring purposes, and as with most growing boys he's done the usual googling of 'naughty' body parts (lol) and we've had a chat about it, but I've found more of the same recently, only not quite so tame, having been googled. It doesn't add up though, because there's very little in his Internet history that corresponds with the words he's googled, whereas there was literally hundreds of items the last time, so I'm wondering whether he's been tipped off by his mates on how to delete his history? I only discovered it because the words were still on the drop down search bar in google. We do supervise his Internet access (although reading this it doesn't sound like it!) but the few bits I found in his history folder were viewed by the resourceful little so-and-so in the short space of time between him coming down for his breakfast at 7am and me or his Dad appearing downstairs at about ten past! We've now done as Ethel and Tanty suggested and set up an admin account for us and a user account with parental control filters for him on his computer (we did have this filter before but it filtered out almost everything and was more trouble than it was worth so we gave up with it), and he doesn't have the password for either, so is reliant on one of us logging him in so we can monitor when he's on there. It's a shame we need to do it, but there's so much out there that's highly unsuitable for an 11 year old. I'm not a prude by any means, but a lot of the stuff is way beyond what most adults would class as 'normal' and I imagine would be very confusing for a child!!!

Anyway, thanks for your help and suggestions...much appreciated. Denise x

[Ethel]

I am very glad I don't have young children, Denise. It must be a nightmare.

I am a prude and it horrifies me that my friend's 6 year old has cable tv in his bedroom.

[Denise_uk]

Yes Ethel, it's a minefield. You're torn between wanting to give them some freedom and letting them grow up a bit but still needing to protect them from the possible consequences of doing so if it goes wrong or they abuse it, and you can't do both! I want him to be the same as his mates so he doesn't feel the odd one out, but the lack of supervision that some of them have, not just with TV and Internet viewing, but physically by being allowed to just wander the streets and get home at ridiculous times, I flatly refuse to allow. He's generally a very good boy - we can talk about pretty much anything and he's reasonably mature for his age in a lot of ways, but when he's with his friends he can be quite easily led and has a desire for acceptance by his peers which has the potential to lead to him doing stupid things to try and gain acceptance. I'm sure he'll grow out of it, but in the meantime it's just a case of taking it day by day and trying to find a mutually acceptable balance between allowing him to have a life so he doesn't feel smothered, and imposing enough restrictions so that his poor old Mum can sleep at night!!! Oh yes...it's a nightmare alright! lol. x

[scaniavabis]

I'm no expert Denise, never having anyone in the family the remotest bit interested in the computer other than myself. I wonder though if you could tackle this from the opposite direction. Instead of setting a user account for yourself and filtering it have you tried setting a use account for your son with limited access ie a "guest" account. You could then set any filters you wanted but more importantly, even with no filters, I'm not entirely that a "guest" would be permitted to erase their browsing history. Surley it's only going to be a matter of time before your son learns how do delete the drop down in Google as well, then you'll have no idea where he's been.

I wish you the best of luck with this Denise and sympathise with your unenviable predicament which I'm sure is shared by thousands if not millions of parents!

[PvtSniper]

Guest accounts can erase their history just as any other user..

but there is the option of restricting access to the control panel, internet options, which ultimately leads to not being able to erase history.

this is kind of advanced stuff however. but what I would recommend is restricting access from his account to registry editor, control panel, internet options and the run menu. this should in theory stop him being able to clear his typed words and history of sites visited.

I dont think i'll have time to figure this out today, but when I have time i'll give in-depth guides on how to do this.

[Denise_uk]

Hi again. I did as scaniavabis suggested and tried the guest account option, but as PvtSniper says, I discovered that the default settings on a guest account doesn't prevent the ability to erase the Internet history. Any further 'how to' help you can give on setting more restrictions within the guest account when you have time would be gratefully received PvtSniper, many thanks.