Elementary precautions
Cyber cafes are very popular in our counry. The revolutions in technology ensures that everyones has a use for internet. People mainly use cyber cafes for browsing internet,checking thier mails and chatting.
The first thing you should make sure is that you never tell the owner of the cyber cafe your email id and password to check your mail.Email ids and passwords should always be entered only by thier owners.At most they can ask for guidance to the log-in screen to enter details personally.
Another important rule is the practice of people coming with thier floppies,CDs or pen drives to send their resumes via email. Usually individual computers have neither floppy nor CD drives. The media is hence run through the server itself before being transferred to the relevant individual's PC. After sending these documents the user forgets about deleting the documents on the original server. More than simply emptying the recycle bin, you should ensure the cyber cafe has a file shredder program to properly delete these files. Resumes contain many personal details ,you should avoid all risk of these being exposed.
Other options you should be aware of when surfing include disabling the option for "remember my ID on this computer" when surfing. Make sure to turn of the autocomplete option in the browser.This can be done by accessing Tools>Internet Options>Autocomplete tab in the Internet explorer and tools > options > privacy > password tab in firefox. There are also options for clearing your private history / temporary internet files which surfing in case you dont want your browsing history known.
Always make sure that you logout properly when you are using messenger software or mail accounts. Some people make mistakes with IM software by simply closing the program,which does not shut it down but minimizes it into the system tray. This should be taken care of to ensure that the next user does'nt use your IM account as he wishes. You should also take care to disable options that allow archiving of messages as text files. This helps in keeping conversations private and personal info usually shared online safe.
Finally whenever you go to a cyber cafe, ensure it has the most upto date anti-virus and spyware definitions. These will help root out Trojan horses and keyloggers responsible for tracking your activity and recoring your password/IDs.