Addresses, credit card information, Social Security numbers — we give our tech a lot of information. And it's always important to have a sense of privacy. So when reader kathydenise1981 wrote to us, concerned that their computer remembered their credit card number, I understood why they were worried.
"Everytime I put the first number my whole card number shows," they wrote. Our reader had made an online purchase, and now it's showing up everywhere.
There are a couple of ways to tackle this, depending on your operating system and browser, but the best first step is to blast your cache.
Luckily, we have tutorials for this ready to go. Here's how to clear your cache and history for all of the major browsers:
Make sure to clear both your history and your cache. If that doesn't work, it's possible that the credentials are stored in the operating system.
On Windows 10, go to Control Panel > User Accounts > Saved Credentials to see a list (or remove) items that the OS has stored. For macOS, go to Applications > Utilities > Keychain for a list of stored credentials.
Lastly, some online stores will remember your credit card details after a purchase. In those cases, you'll need to log in to your profile at each store and delete them on a case-by-case basis.
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