Being a privacy freak, I was pretty freaked out to learn about these little devils(Yes, I know I'm about four years behind). I thought I was doing good clearing my cache, cookies and history on a regular basis. Most you you cats here know computers much better than I do and I was wondering if you can help me out. I read up online how to eliminate them without downloading a free program and here's what I was told -

1. Press F8 at the start-up and choose safe mode with command prompt
2. Log in as Administrator
3. Once reach command prompt type in "CD\" and hit enter(without quotes of course)
4. Type " del index.dat /s" and hit enter to erase all index.dat files
5. Type "shutdown -r"

I have a couple of questions, first of all, "shutdown -r" was not an acceptable function or some jazz like that and I didn't know how else to end the session so I manually rebooted. Would the erasing still have taken place eventhough I didn't exit "properly"?? What command could I try in the future(I have Windows 2000)???

The reason I ask is that it was warned that doing what I did could erase ones cache and cookies, however when I checked them when rebooted, they were still there in all of their glory? Did I do something wrong or should everything be cleaned??

For those uninitiated on index.dat files, basically they are hidden trackers that your computer keeps(if using MS and MSIE) eventhough you clear your history, cookies and cache. Basically you think you are in the free and clear(for whatever reason) though in reality your every internet move and outlookexpress email is still there and easily accessed and read by those in the know.

Is there any more actions I could take to "clean" my computer from tracking/trailing possibilities. Is it a big waste of time to even try - Is it even possible to do so??

I promise I'm not a kiddie porn freak or doing anything illegal, I'm more of the tinfoil hat type...