If you’re running XP, set up different user accounts for each other. Then your roommate can do whatever he/she wants without affecting your settings, and vice versa.
Or install Firefox (or Opera or Netscape or practically anything else), start using it instead, and don’t tell him/her, so he/she keeps using IE.
Whose computer is it?
edit: That’s a little brusque of me. Why I am asking is for a couple of reasons. If you are the owner, then you are the administrator and you can make changes no questions asked. But, secondly, it is suspicious behavior on your roomies part. If it was a guy then 99% probability it is just porn. If it is a woman, I am clueless as to what they would be secretive about. (What me stereotyping? Never.) Anyway, if it is anything legally questionable, it would come back to you, or at least, you’d have to do a lot of explaining.
I think its really weird to constantly clear it and secondly
All profoundly paronoid people clear the history, cache, trash bin, my docs, windows temp, etc etc…just so others can’t see what we…I mean they have been doing.
~Matt
Hmmmm… see above.
I don’t think Firefox will password-protect things like that. What it will let you do is check or un-check which particular “private data” items you want cleared when you select “Clear Private Data” … this might do the trick if you can convince her that leaving the history log alone while dumping the cache & such is sufficiently “safe”. Not sure if IE will do this, but I bet it does something similar.
Her being female and (I’m guessing based on her just having “learned” about dumping private data - NOT her gender) unfamiliar with computers, I’ll go out on a limb and guess that somebody told her folks can sniff the computer and find out her CC numbers and such. So she’s scared and perhaps overreacting. I don’t mean that in a chauvanistic “women are fraidy-cats” way, just that if it was a guy he’s probably hiding porn and not even thinking about being secure with his browsing.
Have you tried just saying to her - hey! Quit deleting the history log! I actually use it!
Alright…fess up.
Are you looking to re-visit your history or wanna see what she’s up to?
If you wanna do some under cover spying, just say so and I’ll give ya the tutorial…
A simple firewall with a web log will show you if she’s looking on Craigslist.
I like the User Accounts capability as you can keep using the same computer, but have separate settings…
Then, you don’t need to download a new browser or hassle with the conversation. Just say things would be easier…heck, you don’t need to password protect the user-accounts.
Start-Control Panel-User Accounts
maybe she is viewing weird embarrasing stuff.
I think its really weird to constantly clear it and secondly
All profoundly paronoid people clear the history, cache, trash bin, my docs, windows temp, etc etc…just so others can’t see what we…I mean they have been doing.
~Matt
Or just a private person. Doesn’t feel it is a roommate’s business to know what she does, regardless of how innoucuous it may be-whether it is a quilting site or aomsething about “past lives”, she may feel it is her own business and not yours. But if its your machine, you make the rules. Let her get her own machine.
it appears to just be ebay shopping
Classic sitcom plot. She is Christmas shopping for you and trying to keep it a secret. You get all bitchy about your computer History. A fight develops. You each say stuff about each other that bothers you. She moves out. Your Christmas presents arrive the next day. You trrack her down to apologize. You make-up and embrace, which lasts a “bit” too long, and you discover you are both lesbians. She moves back in and you begin making porno for the Internet.
Or maybe she has installed a hidden camera which broadcasts from your shower.
it appears to just be ebay shopping
Classic sitcom plot. She is Christmas shopping for you and trying to keep it a secret. You get all bitchy about your computer History. A fight develops. You each say stuff about each other that bothers you. She moves out. Your Christmas presents arrive the next day. You trrack her down to apologize. You make-up and embrace, which lasts a “bit” too long, and you discover you are both lesbians. She moves back in and you begin making porno for the Internet.
Or maybe she has installed a hidden camera which broadcasts from your shower.
Put a keystroke logger on it and see what she is up to. 
My bet it is something she doesn’t want you to know about.
or she is very security conscious.
Mark
Time for a new roommate! Does her name happen to be Jennifer Jason Leigh? Or was Bridget Fonda the creepy roommate in Single White Female? I don’t remember.
No, she is a great roommate. She not a psycho, I highly doubt it s a porn thing. I really don’t care if she wants to keep certain things private. That’s why I went ahead and installed firefox, which I will use and she can erase IE history every 10 minutes if she wants. Action taken, problem solved.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, how about we just let this thread die now?
I’m not sure this thread should die yet. This is just too weird. What is that movie from the 80’s “Have you checked the children”