It's been said in here many times that it is best to keep your reading to yourself, and that includes this reddit account. A wife who comes across TRP is just not going to understand.

I'm still working on getting my shit together and getting unplugged, and so I have little advice that I can add here. However, I do know computers and have gotten very good with my own system for ensuring that my web browsing, PDFS, books, and audiobooks all remain confidential. I don't have to worry about accidentally being logged in, and my browser favorites are full of my MRP bookmarks.

My system creates an encrypted volume on the computer using TrueCrypt, and it uses Chrome for webbrowsing. Basically, I am putting a portable version of Chrome in an encrypted drive. Plenty has been written about TrueCrypt, so I won't go into the details. Theoretically Veracrypt should now be used because TrueCrypt may have backdoors, but unless you are dating a CIA agent, TrueCrypt will be fine.

Here it goes:

  1. Install Chrome as your webbrowser.

  2. Create a TrueCrypt volume. You can do it on an external drive or even a large folder on your harddrive.
    In TrueCrypt preference, be sure to select "Auto-dismount volume after no data has been read/written to it for __ minutes" I put 5 in that box, but you can adjust it as you need. Also select "Force auto-dismount even if volume contains open files or directories. You can select the other autodismount options too just in case you have to leave your computer suddenly.

  3. Mount the volume as a drive on your computer. I use drive letter P.

  4. Create a folder in P called ChromeUserData. This is where all your history, bookmarks, and cookies will live.

  5. Drag a shortcut to Chrome to your P drive and click properties. Under the shortcut tab, you will see a box called target. Paste this into it: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -user-data-dir="P:\ChromeUserData"

In the Box called "Start In", paste this into it if it isn't already there. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application" Save and close the shortcut settings.

  1. Now click the shortcut. It should open a new browser window that doesn't contain any bookmarks or cookies. You can now log in to reddit, view youtube videos, and save bookmarks in the browser. You can store all your pdfs, audiobooks, and videos in the P: drive. You don't have to log out of any websites. Your history remains contained within the encrypted volume. If you did this on a thumbdrive, you can even take it to another computer.

When you are done browsing, go back to TrueCrypt and dismount your volume. Done. all your browsing in untraceable. When you mount the volume again, all of your browsing history, bookmarks, and cookies are available to you again.

Things to doublecheck:

  • Windows sometimes saves recently opened files in the start menu. If that is the case, disable that feature if your frequently visited sites are showing up.

  • Items you delete may still show up in your recycle bin. So empty the recycle bin regularly.

Let me know if I can provide further details.