Cookies

[Gus 97]

Whilst surfing the WWW I understandably attract tracking cookies.

Do they all need deleting or just the ones you do not use day to day.

 

As I understand it if you delete the cookie you have to sign in with user name and password for the next visit to the site.

 

I have Pest patrol, Webroot spy sweeper, cache Cleaner, I was wondering if it is OK to leave the cookies on the PC?

I think my webroot spy sweeper quarantines them without deleting them.

TIA

[MM 6,562]

I seldom bother to delete cookies unless I'm having trouble logging into a site, and then I might do it because they might have changed the cookie format or my local cookie is messed up somehow.

[joekicker 53]

Up to you.

 

I LIKE cookies, because they let the sites keep me logged on or take me to the page I left off at, or remember what I bought last time or give me Thailand news instead of India, etc.

 

If it is your computer, and yours alone, there is nothing negative cookies can do except take up a pretty small amount of disk space. Remember, they are text files and not programs. But many people like to clean them out, even every time they close the machine. I think that's paranoid - others might think it's not paranoid enough.

 

Every "sweeper" I use (including browsers to delete the Internet cache) I tell it NOT to delete cookies.

 

MM is exactly right that a corrupted cookie can hold you up and needs to be deleted. Other than that:

 

Up to you.

[Gus 97]

Thanks a lot guys, great help again from BMs, even the boss himself

[Samsonite 181]

My browsers are setup to delete cookies upon closing the program and I often delete them during a session. Why?

 

"What About Malicious Cookies?

Cookies normally do not compromise security, but there is a growing trend of malicious cookies. These types of cookies can be used to store and track your activity online. Cookies that watch your online activity are called malicious or tracking cookies. These are the bad cookies to watch for, because they track you and your surfing habits, over time, to build a profile of your interests. Once that profile contains enough information there is a good chance that your information can be sold to an advertising company who then uses this profile information to target you with interest specific adverts. Many antivirus programs today will flag suspicious spyware or adware cookies when scanning your system for viruses."

 

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Intern...out_cookies.asp

 

Web sites are somewhat like bar-girls. She may look pretty, but you have no way of knowing "where she has been," so it is good practice to always use a condom.

 

Web sites, "good and bad," place these cookies on your computer. Visit a microsoft web site, if you are using windows, then send sign off and run a scan with your anti-malware utility and see what it finds.

 

Your browsers can be setup to remember your passwords so you are signed on with just a click or two and the information about where you left off in any particular message thread seems to be store by the web site and not in a cookie on your computer.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Scalawag

[joekicker 53]

"What About Malicious Cookies?

Cookies normally do not compromise security, but there is a growing trend of malicious cookies. These types of cookies can be used to store and track your activity online. Cookies that watch your online activity are called malicious or tracking cookies.

 

Malicious OR tracking? Aren't those two things very different?

 

Cookies are MEANT to "track your activity online". That is their purpose. Now I can see why you might say "malicious" if they called your mother and reported you for looking at too many naughty sites, but they don't do that. What they report is "that guy, who we don't know his name or address but we know his IP number, has already been here 23 times and he has looked at all the lesbian pictures and all the Asian ladyboy pictures and all the fat-girl pictures so we'd better show him the threesomes this time".

 

If you're using a machine that belongs to someone else AND isn't supposed to be surfing porn, then that's bad FOR YOU even though it's still not malicious. In fact, I can't figure how a cookie could be malicious. But they do track, yes. Some find that offensive, I find it helpful.

 

On the other hand, your "expert" you quoted is really wrong - a cookie can certainly compromise YOUR security, to your boss, say, or your wife/GF who looks in your cookie cache - something like that. And my security is a heckuva lot more important than my computer's security. That's why I recommended never to touch properly functioning cookies on a computer that is used by you and only by you. Family computer, office computer.... different recommendations.

 

And there ARE cookies being developed (not text files) that might maybe be able to track you from site to site, instead of only within one site as now. So the whole subject may have to be revisited. Adobe already has Flash cookies that I think are very creepy because they are big and no one is quite sure just what they might be able to do later on.

[Samsonite 181]

Well, you are not correct, but I what the hell, believe what you want.

 

You might find this site to be of interest:

 

http://www.macromedia.com/support/document..._manager06.html

[midlifecrisis 4,048]

My browsers are setup to delete cookies upon closing the program and I often delete them during a session. Why?

 

"What About Malicious Cookies?

Cookies normally do not compromise security, but there is a growing trend of malicious cookies. These types of cookies can be used to store and track your activity online. Cookies that watch your online activity are called malicious or tracking cookies. These are the bad cookies to watch for, because they track you and your surfing habits, over time, to build a profile of your interests. Once that profile contains enough information there is a good chance that your information can be sold to an advertising company who then uses this profile information to target you with interest specific adverts. Many antivirus programs today will flag suspicious spyware or adware cookies when scanning your system for viruses."

 

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Intern...out_cookies.asp

 

Web sites are somewhat like bar-girls. She may look pretty, but you have no way of knowing "where she has been," so it is good practice to always use a condom.

 

Web sites, "good and bad," place these cookies on your computer. Visit a microsoft web site, if you are using windows, then send sign off and run a scan with your anti-malware utility and see what it finds.

 

Your browsers can be setup to remember your passwords so you are signed on with just a click or two and the information about where you left off in any particular message thread seems to be store by the web site and not in a cookie on your computer.

Won't a really good anti-virus / anti-spyware program take care of this for you?

[Samsonite 181]

Won't a really good anti-virus / anti-spyware program take care of this for you?

Yes, if you take the time to run it on a regular basis, but you can accomplish the same thing

by setting up your browser to delete all cookies when it shuts down. You can also, at least with Firefox and Opera, setup exceptions, i.e., sites from which you will accept cookies and not delete them.

Then there are the anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall developers who are in bed with microsoft and allow them to set their cookies, which are nothing more than spyware, and allow XP and Vista to "call home." Sometime when you are bored out of your mind, read that disclaimer that you are asked to accept when you install XP or Vista. They don't give you a choice. If you want to install their software you have to agree, but I think if more people actually read the fine print, they would not be using microsoft software. XP was bad enough, but when Vista came out and I read the reviews, I switched to Linux full time.

bill gates and microsoft are George Orwell's "Big Brother" come to life.

[joekicker 53]

Won't a really good anti-virus / anti-spyware program take care of this for you?

 

It's not a problem to clear cookies. Your browser will do it. Or get an all-in-one like the super (totally free) Crap Cleaner, now called CCLeaner because of all the sensitivity going around.

 

ccleaner.com

 

Almost universally praised and recommended as a cleanup tool.

 

But the question was: SHOULD I CLEAR my cookies? Different opinions on that and, indeed, different levels of reasoning by users. There is no "correct" answer for everyone.

 

Well, you are not correct, but I what the hell, believe what you want.

 

I believe you didn't state what was incorrect. I believe you claim to have some information, so have a go.

 

"Flash cookies" (LSOs) are capable of tracking you from site to site. Polite ones don't do it, and Adobe has attempted to build in safeguards to prevent it from happening. However, that safeguard HAS been bypassed already in proof of concept. There is NO software that can't be hacked, including LSOs.

Edited May 23, 2009 by joekicker

[Samsonite 181]

I believe you didn't state what was incorrect. I can be educated, have a go.

I learned a long time ago that trying to talk to you is like trying to piss on a forest fire; it is a waste of time.

You're back on ignore.