How to completely hide your browsing history (adult or otherwise)
People always assume that to keep your browsing history hidden means deleting it or not saving it in the first place but that's slightly incorrect - you just need to think outside the box. The joy of this method is that no-body will expect to find your "real" Internet history there.
Virtual Machines are the solution
An odd solution at that, I'm not aware of anyone else who has discussed this matter. If you obtain a Virtual machine of sorts (Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWare - more on that later) and install an operating system of choice on there (Linux for example, it's free after all) then you have an entirely fresh machine for use.
Avoid being caught by using another machine, a virtual one. No longer must you worry about viruses, malware or your girlfriend discovering your Pornotube addiction
Pros
Because you're using a virtual machine it keeps whatever you're doing entirely separate of your main machine which means if another comes along and looks through your normal Internet history they will be none-the-wiser as to what you've been doing. Also you can browse *whatever* you want without fear of spyware because what would it matter if your virtual machine got spyware on it? Just reinstall and keep on trucking.
Cons
It's not infallible; the network logs will still show what you've been looking at. Also you've got the inconvenience of having to boot up a virtual machine every time you want to browse something that you want to be kept a secret.
Recommendations
I always recommend VMWare because I think it's a better product, but it's not free so if you're wishing to remain legal it's more likely that you'll want Microsoft Virtual PC. You'll also want an operating system to run on it and I recommend Ubuntu - one of the most popular Linux releases around at the moment. It's free, easy to use, easy to install and it comes with Firefox pre-installed - perfect for your needs.
Realistically you could use a Linux LiveCD (an environment that you boot to directly from a CD, meaning nothing is installed and therefore no history could ever be kept, but they're really slow and therefore totally unusable in real terms.
It's quite easy to hide your browsing history from your machine; simply do it on another. However, that second machine can be within the first. Get VMWare, install Linux on it and when you're done browsing you can close it. Next time simply resume the session and you're away. Free from the world of malware, viruses and your girlfriend discovering the secret present you'd ordered for her.
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