Should I be upset, or is his explanation correct? I was looking at the history on our family laptop...?

[Scrabble]

I was looking at the history on our family laptop. While on Internet Explorer, I clicked on the “File / Edit / View / Favorites / Tools / Help” toolbar bar (near the top of the upper left screen). I clicked on Tools, then clicked on Internet Options, then Browsing History, then clicked the browsing history settings box, which displayed the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, then clicked the View Files button.

One of the internet addresses was for “singlesnet.com” with the date, time and everything shown. Does this mean someone using this computer actually went to / visited that site, or (as my husband says) could it have happened when an advertisement for that website came up on the home page (but he didn’t click on it) and that’s why it appeared in the Temporary Internet Files folder? What is going on here? There were also Internet Addresses for facebook, twitter and myspace, all of which he says he doesn’t have. We have a two year old in the house, so I know it wasn’t her on the computer. Help me understand this please.

[YFCSOnline.com]

Visiting certain sites may contain ads that do popups. When this is done a cookie or temporary file is planted on the history of the computer. I wouldn't worry too much. You could visit some sort of clean christian sites sometimes and an ad will bring up really horrible images or bad things that you wouldn't expect. He may have visited Facebook, Twitter or Myspace. Doesn't really mean he has an account on their but sometimes if you look things up on forums their could be links to them or even Videos for them. I know some how to videos will do this sometimes.

[Empire539]

Well, I can't tell you what you're husband is doing on the Internet. However, it is true that most every site visited leaves some sort of mark in the Temporary Internet Files directory. Many times websites have advertising to pay the costs of maintaining the site, and it's quite possible that "singlesnet.com" appeared as an advertisement that was loaded along with another website. As for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace... they are fairly common to be linked to news articles (such as those giving options to post the article on the site), so if there is an icon or small graphic related to them, then usually it's not a big indicator of anything.

Temporary Internet Files themselves aren't a very reliable source of web browsing history; for instance, I have several links in the temp folder related to porn, but I don't visit porn sites; they were loaded through advertisements via other sites.

A (possibly) better indicator might be the websites typed in the URL address bar. Or perhaps the saved list in a Google search (Suggestions must be off for you to view them; check the Preferences). Usually pressing Ctrl+H will give a more robust form of internet history (it opens to Favorites by default; click the History tab to view the history), in order by date of websites visited. In regards to Facebook or MySpace, if there's more than a few pages of it (i.e. people's profiles, etc), then it's possible he hasn't been totally honest about having those accounts.

But this is just all speculation; it's up to you whether or not you want to trust him.