Mmmm...Cookies!
We technicians get a lot of questions about 'cookies'. What are they? What do they do? Why is everyone telling me to delete mine?
C is for Cookies, that's good enough for me.
C is for Cookies, are they really safe?
Um, wait! That's not how that song goes! Of course cookies are safe! I bake them every Christmas! No one's died eating my cookies yet! What are you talking about?!
There is a little method websites use for a variety of purposes (primarily to see if you have been to their website before), that uses a tiny file that has been termed a "cookie". Various theories have been put forth as to why they are called cookies. It appears that the one that has the most credence is this: in the early 1970s a group of programmers working at Xerox came up with an idea for storing a bit of information on another computer. They appear to have called this little chunk of information a cookie after a character from the popular (at that time) Andy Williams Show. This "Cookie Bear" character would follow Andy around asking for a cookie. Programmers can be very strange people at times. The action of tracing these little files back to their original source is also referred to as following a trail of cookie crumbs.
Do you have more questions about cookies? click on the link below for more information:
But what are these files, and why do websites use them? Are they safe to keep around?
Way back in the infancy of the World Wide Web, roughly 10 - 12 years ago, the people who made the standard for the Web proposed a way to have websites "remember" certain information about the last time you were at that site. This information may have included things like if you had bought something, your username so you didn't have to log in all the time, and maybe even your contact information so you didn't have to type it in every time you wanted to buy something. Cookies were touted as your friend, a real time saver to the customer, and a wealth of marketing data to the seller on the 'net.
The cookie itself doesn't carry a lot of information. In fact, it's just a little text file on your hard drive. The cookie has a reference to the website that you were at and usually some kind of number that the website reads to reference you with their records. The technical name for this information is a name=value pair. The name would be the website and the value is the chunk of information that the website wants to store on your system. YourTechOnline uses cookies to see if you are still logged into your account by sending you a cookie that we can check to see if it's there. If it's there then you've been logged in recently. Some cookies on other sites are a lot more complex. They can track when you were there last, how many pages you viewed at that site, how long you stayed, and a bunch of other data. This is more rare, though.
But as time went on, some less reputable web masters discovered they could make money by selling the information gathered using these little files, and began to create them so that they updated the website every time you visited. Now these cookies weren't merely holding information, they were reporting it too. So whenever anyone entered personal information at these sites, these shady webmasters would begin selling information about the browsing habits of the customer. This would result in getting email offers the customer hadn't asked for, or emails for sites the customer had never visited.
Now, imagine this. You go to a website and on that website is an invisible link to a different company (we'll call it the "gathering" company) that also drops a cookie on your system. This gathering company pays websites to include their invisible links. Now you go to a 100 different websites that all include these invisible links from the gathering company. Every time your web browser sees this invisible link, the cookie from the gathering company gets read and updated. This gathering company is now tracking your web usage across many websites instead of just one. Now we're getting into invasion of privacy territory. You don't know it's happening and no one is saying that this is what's happening when you visit the site. Internet Explorer version 6 tried to reduce the effects of this by blocking cookies that didn't come from the site that you were visiting but the unethical companies have found ways around this.
The situation just got worse and worse to the point that now, in the present, we have two types of cookies. Those that are time savers for the customer, and those that technicians see as invaders on your computer that need to be removed.
Many websites still require that you have your browser set to accept cookies or you won't get access to their sites. Some websites have been built so that all interaction you have with the site is based on the information contained in the cookie. They are rare but they do exist. Cookies set by banking institutions, health institutions, or membership sites that are proven to be safe are fine to keep around.
There are various ways to handle cookies. One way is to block cookies completely. Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera (the browser, not the production) all have an area where you can turn cookies off, or set your browser to only accept certain kinds of cookies. In IE, you can get to these settings in the Privacy tab of Internet Options under Tools on your IE menu bar at the top. In Netscape and Opera, this option is under Preferences/Privacy settings. We don't generally recommend this as you may have some difficulties getting into some web sites.
Another way to handle potentially dangerous cookies, is to immunize your computer against them. This process generally requires a qualified technician to set up. One of the YourTechOnline.com technicians will help you do this. When immunized, many of the advertising banners, pop-ups, and such won't be able to deposit their cookies onto your computer.
The last way to deal with cookies, is to make them part of your monthly disk maintenance routine. In Internet Explorer, go into Tools > Internet Options and look on the General Tab for "Delete Cookies". In Netscape 7 go to Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Cookies > Manage Stored Cookies > Click on "Remove All Cookies". Those of you with Netscape Version 4, there is no easy way to remove the cookies, you'll have to get a technician to do it.
The bottom line on cookies is that many can be an invasion of privacy and should be removed or prevented from being placed on your system. YourTechOnline is pleased to help anyone who'd like this cleaned up.
Do you have more questions about cookies? click on the link below for more information:
