>I clean my cookies every once in a while and I defrag often. But I cannot remove or defrag INDEX.DAT.
>
>Is there something I can do at start up to clean Index.DAT - I know there are commercial products - but was hoping that someone here knows of a home brewed method.

Take a look at free Index.dat Suite at http://www.it-mate.co.uk/support/idsuite.asp.