Cookies

TECH TIP: Cookies – NOT the kind you eat!

In this tech tip:

Cookies: What are they?
What are they not?
Are they good or bad?
How should you handle cookies?
Final word on cookies

Cookies: What are they?
We’re talking internet cookies – not Double Chocolate Chips Ahoy! Do you know what they are? When you visit a website, the site that you are visiting places a cookie on your computer if it is given permission to do so (more on that later). The cookie is a small text file that contains a unique ID number. Cookies can keep track of what you are doing at the website, such as:

How many times you have visit it – and when.
If it is a shopping site, what you are buying (or what you have bought).
If you fill out a form, it will store your personal information such as your name and your interests, Sometimes I go to a website and the sites says, “Welcome back, Charles.” Aha – they got my name from a cookie. (This doesn’t happen often because I delete cookies – more an that later). Always keep in mind that cookies only report what you have entered.
You can customize the way you look at a website and the cookie stores that information. Then when you revisit that website, it is shown the way that you customized it.

When and if you return to a website, the website looks for their cookie and then can customize the visit based on the information you have stored in the cookie.

Cookies: What are they not?
Let’s correct some misinformation that often circulates about cookies.

Cookies are not programs – they don’t execute anything. (Remember, they are short text files – they contain only text). Cookies cannot spread viruses.
Cookies do not gather personal information about you from your computer’s hard drive– they don’t have that ability. (Spyware does have that ability).
A website can only retrieve their own cookies – they cannot look at other cookies that are stored on your computer.

Are they good or bad?
Well, based on what you’ve read so far, cookies seem quite benign. However, as is the case with many things on the internet, some programmers have figured out ways to use cookies a bit more surreptitiously. Double Click is one (http://www.doubleclick.com/us/) – there are many others. This internet company can place cookies on your computer that are visible on multiple websites. That means they can now track your activities across many different websites. This gets very close to spying on you and your internet activities because they can gather information about you as you go from site to site. Even worse, they can then sell this information to other companies who can then target you for spam and advertising.

How should we handle cookies?
There are some things that you can do about cookies.

You don’t have to accept cookies. You can set your browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) to block all cookies. This solves the cookies problem – but it will also lock you out of some websites. Some sites require that you accept their cookie in order to use their website.
You can block some cookies and require a website to ask you if you want to accept their cookie. This is good but can drive you crazy because most sites use cookies these days and you will constantly be getting popups asking you if you want to accept a site’s cookie.
You can accept cookies but then delete them – that is delete all of them.
You can accept cookies and then delete some of them – delete the ones you choose to delete

Here’s how you do the above in Internet Explorer.

1. Set the Security Level of your browser. Click on the Tools Menu, and then click on Internet Options.

If you have Internet Explorer 5, click on the Security tab. Choose the security level you want to use. You can decide how to use cookies independently by clicking on Custom Level, then scroll down to cookies. Select Disable, Enable, or Prompt (Note: There are two kinds of cookies – persistent cookies that are stored on your computer and per-session cookies that are not stored on your computer).
If you have Internet Explorer 6, Click on the Privacy tab. Choose the security level you want to use. You can decide how to use cookies independently by clicking on the Advanced button, then click on Override automatic cookie handling. Choose how to handle both types of cookies and choose whether you want to “always allow session cookies.” Session cookies are not stored on your computer.

(What do I do? – I use the default setting of Medium security. I do not use custom settings for cookies. I delete selected cookies – read on).

2. Periodically delete all the cookies on your computer. Note: When you do this, you lose all custom settings to websites that you have previously visited.

Click on the Tools Menu and then click on Internet Options.
Click on the General tab and then click on Delete Cookies.
Click OK. All you cookies are deleted.

3. Delete selected cookies from your computer. There are several ways to delete only cookies that you select from your computer. I will give you 3 ways.

I use a neat little Freeware program called Cookie Spy available here - http://camtech2000.net/Pages/CookieSpy.html. This program shows you all your cookies and even shows you the information in the cookie. You might not be able to decipher what the information means – but it’s there! You can then select the cookies you want to keep and which you want to delete. This is a really quick, painless way to delete unwanted cookies.
You can use Ad-aware to do this also. After you scan your hard drive for malicious files with Ad-aware, you will get a list of all the cookies on your computer as well as other adware files. Select the cookies and files you want to delete. This method takes quite a while – not great if you just want to delete cookies.
You can also view and delete selected unwanted cookies and other internet files on your hard drive from Internet Explorer. Click on Tools, then click on Settings, then click on View Files. You will see all the files in your Temporary Internet Files folder. Arrange the files by Type (click on the View menu, select Arrange icons by and then click on Type) and you will see the cookies grouped together on your hard drive along with all other files downloaded while you have been surfing. Double-click on the cookies to read them if you want and delete the ones you don’t want.
This is an effective way to manage these cookie files but rather cumbersome.

Final word – cookies are not a big deal if you are a careful surfer and if you have good security settings, and if you occasionally delete cookies – either selectively or totally – from your hard drive.

For more information on cookies, see these cool sites.
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cookies.htm (good tips here)
http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/ (everything you need to know here)
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cookie1.htm (easy to read & understand)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;168976 (manage cookies on a Mac computer)
http://www.aboutcookies.org/deletecookies.html (more cookie info including info for Macs)

Now it’s time for a real Double Chocolate Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookie! Happy surfing!

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