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Web browsers

internetIn terms of investigations, it should be noted that the accessed links are generally temporarily stored in the client programs. This feature called History – history of navigated pages, and can be a very useful tool for research pages that were accessed by a possible suspect.

An interesting aspect is that the addresses of History also contain other information. The URL parameter can appear to help the server to compose appropriate response.

It is noted that the search terms are added to the search URL, separated by the symbol “?” and containing the parameters in the form name=value . They generally should not be entered manually, are generated by the browser in response to a user request.

If in the PC of a suspect appears an address that you are interested in it, it can be concluded the him probably sought and obtained information about the searched terms.

Browsers also offer other facilities that can be used to investigate a suspect’s actions. These are the list of bookmarks, temporary storage of data last accessed (cache) and cookies.

The list of bookmarks, generally referred to Favorites or Bookmarks, give to the users the possibility to track interesting pages they visit. This list is personal and is easily accessible when the browser is opened.

Browsers are optimized to reduce network traffic that is not required, meaning that files are transferred each time they are displayed. Instead they are stored temporarily (for a few hours, days or weeks) on the local disk. When the user wants to display a page, the browser first checks whether text, images or files not already accessed it. If this has happened, their content has been transferred from the server, thereby dramatically browsing speed and comfort.

This process is called caching, in terms of investigations is very important because many samples can be gathered by examining the contents of files it contains. The location of these files depends on the operating system and browser. Until now, all browsers keep unencrypted contents of these files, making easier to examine.

Cookies are small text files that are on your local disk. They contain information that assists the browser and the web server to display a user customized pages for sites that offer dynamic content. May also contain your user name or password for a page. The contents of these files is defined by the creators of websites and they are usually stored unencrypted, as well as cache.

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