Even though cost of computers has basically made them a commodity and households often have two or more PCs, there still exists the concept of shared computing. As such, it makes sense that there would be times you wish to keep the web sites you are visiting hidden from another user of a multi-user system.

Hiding your browsing history doesn’t immediately point to you being up to no good – an important part to realize. If you are researching a romantic getaway for your significant other, obviously you wouldn’t want the surprise ruined by your browser history of all things! Likewise, many are already aware of how to delete their browsing history but doing it in an all or nothing fashion equally raises some suspicion. Does anyone want to get into a game of 20 questions as to why the browser history on the shared computer is cleared?

It’s at this point you may be interested in knowing that Firefox has included the concept of clearing recent browsing history for a number of  versions – but it wasn’t something I had used or even knew about till the need arose.

The option is available through the Firefox menu drop down (in Firefox 4′s case) or via Tools menu item in older releases. Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+DEL works irregardless of version.

Within the Clear Recent History window you can choose which Details are affected and most importantly, the time range to clear: Last Hour, Last Two Hours, Last Four Hours, or Today.