Are FireFox cookies and history deletion secure?

[jfcarbel]

That is are the cookies and history deletion data securely deleted?

[Eldmannen]

Depends on which option you use.

 

The default setting is just normal file deletion (not wiping), it is good enough for most people for everyday use, but it is not considered "secure" deletion.

 

Then there are 3 "secure deletion" modes. 1, 3 and 7 passes. That is how many time it overwrites the contents of the file. They should be pretty secure in erasing the contents. The NSA variant with 7 passes is supposedly good enough for NSA. And DOD good enough for Department of Defense.

 

Secure deletion mode will afaik only securerly get rid of the contents of the cookies, the filenames may still be recoverable.

 

For dedicated file wiping software see Eraser:

* http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

[JDPower]

For dedicated file wiping software see Eraser:

* http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

 

Site appears to be down at the moment, try Download.com - Eraser 5.7 if you want it while site is down.

[playr101]

use eraser to wipe free space..

after using ccleaner to clean..

 

-playr101

[jfcarbel]

I also own the Steganos security suite, so I can use its secure file deletion as well.

 

Steganos, is very lame in their support of alternate browsers. They do offer a cookie cleaner and secure hidden favorites but they lamely only support IE.

 

I really liked the Cookie cleaner in Ace Utilities, how does this compare with CCleaner one?

 

I am going to download both latest versions and take a look at them.

[JDPower]

use eraser to wipe free space..

after using ccleaner to clean..

Considering how long a free space wipe can take I think I'd rather wait the few extra seconds for CCleaner to do a secure delete of what it finds (and use Erase instead of delete when deleting anything sensitive).