For at least the last five years, I’ve recommended a program called PurgeIE as a way to clean up traces that Internet Explorer leaves behind. Recently, I heard from Jim Lawler, the program’s developer, that he’s released a Firefox-compatible alternative called PurgeFox. I’ve put the program through its paces over the past month or so and recommend it highly.
If you’ve ever used PurgeIE, the PurgeFox interface will be familiar. It doesn’t work as a Firefox plug-in but rather runs as a stand-alone program.
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By selecting check boxes on the Purge Options dialog box, you decide what you want to eliminate. You can wipe out some or all of the following Firefox elements: the browser cache, cookies, history file, and forms history. The program also gives you the option to erase the contents of various locations that aren’t directly related to Firefox, like temp folders, the Windows file history, the Recycle Bin, and the Clipboard.
The program’s biggest strength is as a cookie manager. Like PurgeIE, it gives you the option to designate specific cookies as protected, a setting that it saves in its configuration files. As you go through the list, you can see the exact contents of each cookie and decide for yourself whether to keep it or purge it. This setting is maintained in addition to the Firefox Allow/Block settings. When you run the Purge button, the program zaps all cookies except those marked as Protected.
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PurgeFox has one thoughtful feature designed to keep you from inadvertently deleting more than you intended. After you select a group of settings, click the Preview button to open a window that shows you exactly what will happen if you use those settings. If you’re satisfied with the results, click the Purge button to do the job. For the sake of convenience, you can also save different groups of settings to run on startup and on shutdown, and in response to a Purge Now button that lives on your desktop or on the Start menu. That’s handy if you want to routinely clean out certain settings without having to select options all over again.
Most of the features that PurgeFox performs can be done manually, if you know where to look in the Firefox Options dialog box and in various Windows dialog boxes. Besides being more convenient, this program adds a “secure erase” option, which makes it more difficult for someone to recover files you thought you had deleted. It also supports plug-ins that extend its functionality to other programs, including Adobe Acrobat, the Google toolbar, WinZip, and other elements of the Windows interface, including the Run box and the search history.
The program runs on Windows XP, 2000, and 2003. It also runs on older versions, including Windows 98, Windows Me, and NT 4.0. If you’re a privacy fanatic and you use Firefox, this is well worth the $21.95 license fee. If you already own PurgeIE or PurgeIE Pro, you can get a PurgeFox license for $11. Not sure? Try it out for 15 days.
Ed Bott 