Remember! If you use the registry editor incorrectly, you might cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Use the registry editor at your own risk.

Here’s how you implement the tweak (tested in Vista and Windows XP and Yahoo Messenger V8):

Darryl, one of this blog readers, asked me how to delete a Yahoo account? Well, to make a long story short, the account deletion process isn’t well documented and might be a bit frustrating. Moreover, before deleting an account you must be aware of the possible negative effects on your data completeness and email identity. Therefore, i decided to document the best practices that should be used in order to cancel a Yahoo account, in case any of my readers will need it in the future. Due to the fact this is an important issue, i strongly recommend that you bookmark this page.

So here’s what you need to know before you delete your Yahoo account:

1. Even after you delete your yahoo mail account, people will be able to send you emails for 90 days following the account deletion.
2. If you delete your Yahoo email account you are actually also deleting your all the data associated with your Yahoo account: emails, address book, group memberships, photos, 360 blogs etc’. You’ll also loose your Yahoo Messenger id and other Yahoo services.
3. Note that after deleting your Yahoo! account you won’t be able to re-create it.
4. If you close your account, someone can potentially open a new account with the same name, thus actually taking over your email identity.
5. If you subscribed to any premium services (business hosting etc’), cancel those first—before you delete your account. Yahoo doesn’t guarantee that deleting your Yahoo account will immediately cancel the billing for any premium services you’re subscribed to. This is a crucial point if you are hosting your website or blog with Yahoo.

If you still want to delete proceed as following:

1. Go over your Yahoo mailbox and search for important emails you would like to keep. Send them to your other email address. Note that you if you are using Yahoo in a web client, you won’t be able to export your mailbox automatically.
2. Grab your list of active contacts and update them that your yahoo email address won’t be active any more (remember, mails might reach your yahoo account in the following 90 days without you be able to read them.
3. Export your contacts records to Outlook or Thunderbird.
4. Navigate to the termination page and click Terminate. An alternative approach which I recommend in case you don’t want to use Yahoo email any more, is to simply stop using it. After 90 days of no activity, Yahoo will automatically close your account.

Here’s what you need to do in order to make sure you delete Yahoo search history:

1. In your Yahoo toolbar, click on the yellow pencil icon (Toolbar settings),  and select Clear Recent Searches 

2. If you are using Internet Explorer (IE) as your browser, proceed as following:

• Click Tools
• Click Internet options
• In IE 6 – delete history. In IE 7, go to the Browsing History section, then click Delete and then Delete All 

Now clear forms. This purges entered login and passwords and web addresses.

In IE 6:

• Click Tools
• Click Internet Options
• Open the content tab
• Click Uncompleted
• Click clear forms

In IE 7:

• Click Tools
• Click Internet Options
• Open the content tab
• In the Autocomplete section, click Settings
• Click OK.

3. If you are using Firefox (FF) as your browser, proceed as following:

• Click Tools
• Click Options
• Open the Privacy tab
• In the Private data section, click Clear Now…
• Check all check boxes
• Click Clear Private Data Now.

4. Close all your browser sessions.

[tags] Protect your Privacy, Yahoo toolbar, Yahoo, Firefox, Internet Explorer [/tags]