AutoComplete can store Web addresses, as well as store usernames and passwords of your accounts. If you're not careful, AutoComplete could also allow unauthorized users to gain access to your sensitive information.

The purpose of technology is supposed to make our lives easier. Oddly enough it often has the opposite effect. One example is the AutoComplete feature which is built into Internet Explorer. For those of you not familiar with this feature, AutoComplete is a facility that keeps track of the Web sites you've visited. The reason it does this is because the next time you want to revisit that same site, it will match the first few letters of the address your entering against the list of sites you've previously visited, and automatically fill in the rest of the address for you. This can be particularly useful for entering long complicated Web addresses or for locating specific pages that you might have previously searched for, like articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base .

There are things that your system is capable of storing that could compromise your privacy. For instance, let's say you used your office PC to access your bank account and pay your bills. One of the functions of AutoComplete is that, in addition to storing Web addresses; it also can store usernames and passwords of your accounts. So if you're not vigilant, AutoComplete could inadvertently allow unauthorized users to gain access to your sensitive information. This is especially relevant if you share your PC with co-workers or family member. The point is that regardless of whether we're talking about an office PC or your personal PC, then need to secure and maintain your privacy is more relevant then ever.

Some people complain about the AutoComplete feature, especially, if they spend their free time visiting sites that might not be considered socially acceptable. This facility has the potential to end up embarrassing them.

At the bare minimum, you might want to disable either all of or at least some of the features of the AutoComplete.
You can change these settings in Internet Explorer by following these steps:

 

On the Internet Explorer Tools menu, click Internet Options.
 

In the Internet Options box, click the Content tab, and click the AutoComplete button.

The AutoComplete Settings window will appear.

When you click an empty box, a check mark will appear to let you know that you have chosen to have AutoComplete remember that type of information.

To turn AutoComplete on, click the boxes next to the types of information you want AutoComplete to remember. For example, you can click the "Web addresses" box if you want AutoComplete to find quick matches for the Web sites that you type into the Internet Explorer Address Bar.

If you don't want AutoComplete to remember user names and passwords, you can uncheck the box for User names and passwords on forms Tip: You can erase any user names and passwords that Internet Explorer has already remembered by clicking the Clear Passwords button.  

When you're done choosing your AutoComplete settings, click OK twice.

While this is better then nothing, it still leaves you open to other vulnerabilities. My advice would be to invest in a strong piece of privacy software designed to eliminate exactly the type of information we're talking about here. They dig much deeper into your system and actually write new data (multiple times) in the same space that the previous data occupied. Making it extremely difficult, if not downright impossible, to recover what was there.