Anyone you share your computer
with will be able to see every website you’ve visited in your browser’s history
(unless you browse incognito). They can also install and uninstall add-ons,
alter your default settings and access accounts you have saved login details
for. Fortunately, you can keep nosy parkers out by locking your browser with a
password.
Firefox has a built-in Master
Password feature you can access through Options, Security, which safeguards
your usernames and passwords. You can improve this with the Master Password+
add-on (bit.ly/master340). which lets you lock the entire browser. You’ll be
asked to enter it when you launch Firefox and after the browser has been idle
for a specific length of time. You can protect your privacy in Chrome by
setting up separate user accounts, but a better option is to use ChromePW
(bit.ly/chromepw340). This extension locks the browser with a password (you can
also set up a hint in case you forget it) and closes Chrome automatically if
someone tries to bypass the password by terminating the add-on through the
Windows Task Manager.
Microsoft has removed the option
that let you lock Internet Explorer with a password, but you can stop
individual settings being changed through the Group Policy Editor. Go to Start,
type gpedit.msc and press Enter. Open Computer Configuration, Administrative
Templates, Windows Components, Internet Explorer to access options such as ‘Do
not allow users to enable or disable add-ons’ and ‘Prevent deleting download
history’. Double-click a setting and choose Enabled to turn it on. Note that
Group Policy Editor is not available in Home editions of Windows.
