PC TUNING NOTES
All about Cookies
Firstly, what is a Cookie?
 A Cookie is an extremely useful piece
of information sent by a Web server to a user's browser. Cookies may include information
such as login or registration identification, user preferences, online "shopping
cart" information, etc. The browser saves the information, and sends it back to
the Web server whenever the browser returns to the Web site. The Web server may
use the cookie to customise the display it sends to the user, or it may keep track
of the different pages within the site that the user accesses.
Browsers may be configured to alert the user when a cookie is being sent, or to
refuse to accept cookies. Some sites, however, cannot be accessed unless the browser
accepts cookies.
What are the problems with Cookies?
Cookies do not act maliciously on computer systems. They are merely text files that
can be deleted at any time – they are not plug ins nor are they programs.
Cookies cannot be used to spread viruses and they cannot access your hard drive.
This does not mean that cookies are not relevant to a user's privacy and anonymity
on the Internet. Cookies cannot read your hard drive to find out information about
you; however, any personal information that you give to a Web site, including credit
card information, will most likely be stored in a cookie unless you have turned
off the cookie feature in your browser. In only this way are cookies a threat to
privacy. The cookie will only contain information that you freely provide to a Web
site.
With the accumulation of many Cookies over time, much disc space will be wasted
on your system (see the note "Get rid of junk files " in
Disc Maintenance).
Trusted Cookies
If you are worried about privacy, it is best to allow cookies to be written to your
system only from sites that you trust. This then is how to restrict their creation,
using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0:
- Start Internet Explorer
- Click on the Tools menu button
- Click Internet Options
- Click the delete cookies button and confirm when it asks you if you are sure (there
is a bug with Internet Explorer 6.0 and this has to be done first)
- In the Internet Options dialog box, then click the Privacy tab
- Move the setting to Medium and then click on the Edit button
- It opens "Per Site Privacy Options" dialog box and here you type the complete address
of any website for which you need to keep cookies (for example, http://www.trustedsite.com)
and click the Allow button followed by OK. Then click on Apply and OK
- Repeat step 7. for all the trusted sites.
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