Not simple to erase Netscape Navigator's trail

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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 pull-down 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 the Netscape Browser Archive

The URLs (or web addresses) in the Location pull-down menu are stored by Netscape Navigator in a file named prefs.js which you can find in a sub-directory under the directory where Netscape Communicator is installed on your computer If you used the default installation you'll find it at C:/Program/Files/Netscape/Users//prefs.js".

Note that, where it says above, that will probably the name of the configuration you specified during installation. Mine, for example is awalker.

Find this file on your hard drive, and use a plain text (or ASCII) editor like Windows Notepad to open it. You'll see several lines in that file which read 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 will appear in the Location pull-down menu. Delete all of these lines, but keep all other lines in the file, then save your changes.

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