by Veronica Losh

Created on: March 25, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2007

One of the downsides of the internet is that it makes cheating and accessing porn very easy for even the most novice user.

The first thing you may notice is that your spouse is suddenly spending an inordinate of time online, or may be trying to close pages as you walk in. Their behavior may be more paranoid and secretive. Conversely, they may suddenly become nicer than usual. Another warning sign is when they suddenly want to move the computer from the common areas of the house to a more private space. They may decide to set up their own user account with a private password. You may see signs that they are setting up their own email address, especially if you previously shared an address and they are no longer checking that email.

Your computer may behave differently as well. You may notice a difference in the speed at which your computer loads pages that you use all the time. If you check the history, you may find that it has been deleted. IE7 has made this harder the first time. You'll have to activate the Menu Bar by going to Tools, and making sure Menu Bar is checked. Then, on the Menu Bar, go to View, then Explorer Bar, and select History. A side menu will pop up, and on the History tab, you can drop down a menu to select the way you want to view it-usually it starts out by being listed by date. You can change that to be listed by site. Deleting the history is usually something that does not have to be done every day because you can set up the properties to delete every 20 days or so. When the history and temporary files have been deleted, pages may take longer to load. The next thing you may notice with your computer is a surge of spam or pop-ups. When people become enamored with someone or something online, they are more likely to click on ads or links that they would normally avoid. Obviously, if your spouse is not computer savvy, they may leave evidence behind in the history or temp files. There will be cookies installed from the website(s) they use. To check in IE7, go to Tools, Internet Options, then under Browsing History, select Settings. Another box will open, select View Files. Read the list, and make a note of what is there. Also be aware that each user account on the PC will have it's own browser history, so sign on to each account and check each history.

If you have children, you should be checking the history and temp files on a regular basis anyway, so beware, that you may come across something you'll wish you hadn't.

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