When you are using a Pocket PC, all your browsing history is stored in hidden files. Even though most people are unaware of that, Internet Explorer (IE) keeps these records and does not delete them when you empty your browser cache or delete temporary files by using third party cleaning software. The location of these files and system behavior greatly depend on the version of Windows on your device. Use this free Index.dat Viewer to analyze the contents of these hidden files at your Pocket PC. Tap any line in the list to view record details.

What Index.dat files are

According to Microsoft, "Index.dat files are binary files that Internet Explorer uses to save information about URLs. They are basically hash tables that have been optimized to be very fast when dealing with URLs. Given an URL, these files map the URL to a binary blob of data. The binary blob of data is different, depending on what the particular Index.dat file is used for. Index.dat files are for IE's internal usage only. They are not designed or tested to be used by others". There are three kinds of Index.dat files, all of them having the similar structure but storing different kinds of information.

- Temporary internet files index file. This file keep track of which URLs should be displayed in History. Additionally, it stores other metadata about the URL, such as the number of visits.

- Cookies index file. This file contains a list of cookies placed on your computer by sites you visited recently.

- History index files. These files contain all the URLs you ever opened on your machine.

Cleaning the temporary files won't help. It usually only removes the files, but it will keep all records in the Index.dat files. With increased number of spyware programs, these files are very dangerous, because they may store sensitive information about what sites you visited and even your passwords or credit card numbers.

How to delete them

Generally these files are permanently opened by Windows and access to them are restricted. The only reliable way to remove them is during a soft reset. When the system reboots, these files can get deleted before operating system needs them or IE starts. After deleting the Index.dat files, the system will create new empty files automatically.

Or you can purchase Space Reclaimer which has the option to safely delete Index.dat files at soft reset. No other program can do this for Pocket PC at this moment.

Note:

Index.dat Viewer is available to you from ValkSoft "AS IS", and it is not supported by our customer support team. This viewer uses some undocumented Pocket PC and Windows features and it may not work properly with every given device. We have extensively tested this software with different devices and did our best to make it safe and reliable. But we highly recommend that you backup all your valuable information before starting the program.