Not simple to erase Netscape Navigator's trail

Question: Can you advise on Netscape? How do I delete the contents of the pull-down URL menus? The one that shows sites previously visited.

-- J.R.J.

Answer: Removing the URLs in Navigator 4.0's "location" pulldown menu is not as simple as finding a button and pushing it. But it's no more difficult than editing a text file. The information that follows applies to the Windows 95 and Windows NT versions of Netscape Communicator 4.0.

Information on older versions is available at:
http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19961024-3.html

The URLs (or Web addresses) in the Location pulldown menu are stored by Netscape Navigator in a file named "prefs.js". You'll find this file in a sub-directory under the directory where Netscape Communicator is installed. If you used the default installation you'll find it at -- "C:\ProgramFiles\Netscape\Use rs\\prefs.j s".

Note that is probably the name of the configuration you specified during installation. Mine, for example is awalker.

Use a plain text (or ASCII) editor like Windows Notepad to locate this file on your hard disk and open it. You'll see several lines in that file which look something like this:

user_pref("browser.url_history.URL_1", "http:// help.netscape.com/");
user_pref ("browser.url_history.URL_2", "http://altavista.digital.com/");
user_pref("browser.url_history.URL_3", http://www.edmontonjournal.com/").

These lines define what shows up in the "Location" pulldown menu. Delete all of these lines, but keep all other lines in the file, then save your changes.

Next time Netscape Communicator starts, the Location menu should be empty.

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