Deleting ancient network remnants brings benefits of its own, too, freeing up resources, simplifying your network settings and maybe reducing the chance of problems occurring with other networking software.īear in mind that there are risks involved with this kind of low-level clean-up. Whatever your circumstances, it’s interesting to see what a PC might hold regarding your VPN history. If others have access to your PC, or maybe you’re running a VPN on a work computer, maybe if it’s your own system, probably not.
Whether this is any kind of privacy risk depends on your situation. Most could remain on your system for years. Even uninstalling the VPN will usually leave at least some traces behind, and there are plenty more clues to your activities in Windows’ various network histories.
Often there’s no automated way to remove this information. What these companies don’t always explain is that VPNs (including free VPNs) can keep detailed logs on your PC, often including account details, session connect and disconnect times, and the names of any servers you’ve accessed. Most VPN providers make big claims about their ‘no logging’ policy, and how they don’t maintain the slightest trace of anything you do online. Fully remove a VPN and clean up afterwards on your Windows PC
