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How to Understand CookiesEveryone has heard of cookies, most people love them, especially with milk. But these cookies have got some bad press. But don't worry, the cookie monster won't get you. Here's everything you need to know about computer cookies:How do you know if you get one? 1. What's a cookie? Cookies are a technology that enables Web sites to store small bits of information on your hard drive, and then ask for that information back at a later time. They are very small, the maximum allowed is 4 kb per cookie and one site can give you no more than 20 cookies. Netscape, the company that invented cookies, calls them Persistent Client-side State information. Take a look at their official cookie specs page for some technical stuff. 2. There has been some press that cookies can corrupt your hard drive. NOT TRUE! Cookies are text files, not executable files, so they are not programs. And only programs can corrupt your computer. 3. Cookies can not be read by anyone other than the site that gave it to you. They do not contain any personal information about you anyway. 4. Why do Web sites give out cookies? Well, there are many reasons. If you have a My Yahoo! or My Netscape or My Whatever, a cookie is used so you don't have to keep entering your user name and password. So it makes logging on much simpler. 5. Another reason is to track where you go. Many sites want to know what kind of pages you visit so they can target their advertising to those sites. 6. How to know if you get a cookie? You get cookies all the time, and you'd never know it, unless you set the preferences in your browser to alert you when a cookie is about to be placed. Here's how to set your browser to notify you: Netscape Navigator 3.x users can select the "Options" menu. then "Network Preferences". Now click the "Protocols" tab to find the "Show an alert before accepting cookies" setting. Netscape Navigator 4.x users can click the "Edit" menu, then "Preferences". Now click the "Advanced" tab. You'll notice the cookies choices. Explorer users should select the "View" menu, then "Options". Now click on the "Advanced" tab. Scroll down and you'll see a setting to "Warn before accepting cookies." 7. Set these preferences to "Warn before setting cookies". You will be amazed how many cookies you're getting. Then you'll be annoyed because the dialog box pops up every other page, so change your settings back to the default, "Accept all cookies". 8. You should accept all cookies, because if you don't, you'll have to log-in all the time on your favorite sites. 9. How to find or get rid of cookies. You can see or delete the cookies that were created on your hard drive. If you have Netscape Navigator, this is the path to find the cookie.txt file; C:/Program Files/Netscape/Users/default or your name/cookie.txt. Explorer users will find their cookies stored in a folder called Cookies inside the Windows folder (C:/Windows/Cookies). If you can't find it, use the Windows File Find feature to search for "cookies" and "cookies.txt". 10. To delete these files, first you must exit your browser. Find the files as mentioned in step 10. Navigator users should just click on the cookie.txt file and delete the whole thing. Explorer users should open the Cookies file, then select each individual (or Select all) cookies and delete. 11. You will not harm your computer by deleting the cookies. |
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