Cookies


Cookies are little pieces of data delivered by a web site to your web browser in order to store them in your hard disk. They are just little text files. Why do cookies exist? Simple: by means of cookies a web server can store and retrieve information about you. So, when you join a web service for example, and you type your user-id and password, the server of that site can store these information in your hard disk. The next time you visit that site, it can 'recognize' you by reading your cookie in your hard disk, so you haven't to type again your user-id. Cookies are helpful to store your prefercences about a certain web service in your hard disk. Cookies are used by Yahoo to build a personalized search engine (my-yahoo) or by Firefly to know your preferences for example. These are nice sites, and cookies are well used there. But...some web sites use them to track you...Let's see:

  1. Cookies can't be used to read data from your hard disk
  2. A site can only access a cookie that has been set from its domain (it can't access any other cookie)
  3. Web servers can't get information about you by means of a cookie. They CAN do that in other ways. In fact, every time you connect to a web site, you reveal a lot of information about you: your operating system, the browser type you are using, your service provider server, your geographic location, your IP address (if you are in a dial-up mode, it changes every time you log on).

But...

Some sites use cookies to stealthily follow you among web sites, in order to build a personalized profile of your likes...in order to SERVE YOU A TARGETED AD BANNER! All without your knowledge! Well, ok, when I click on an advertisement banner, I do that because I'm interested about that banner: if I like flowers for example, and I see a nice banner about flowers I click on it. Nice. But the problem is: 'they' COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT ME, and that is a clear privacy violation. I really don't like to know they are looking me...Examples of sites who use cookies in this way are DoubleClic Inc., Focalink Communications Inc. and Interse Corp. But how can they 'look' you? Simple: they use advertisements. So, when you are viewing, say, the Altavista's site, a 'little' DoubleClick's banner is there waiting for you...The next time you go to Altavista, look at your browser status bar: it should show you that you are connecting to DoubleClick's site...So, when you click on an ad banner, 'nice' guys at DoubleClick GIVE you a cookie. So they can store a beautiful cookie in your hard disk telling your web surfer adventures among sites. Now they KNOW that you visited 'that site' (the banner).

Ok, I know all about cookies, but now, what can I do?

Well, first of all, let me say you that sometimes cookies are helpful (My-Yahoo or Firefly for example) so I think you shouldn't disable them at all. But you can 'handle' cookies in several ways:

  1. You can edit them
  2. You can disable them in your web browser
  3. You can use some specialized software

You can edit them

If you are using Netscape browser, you should search for a file called 'cookies.txt' (Windows users) or 'MagicCookie' (Mac users). Usually it is stored in the Netscape's directory. This file contains ALL COOKIES. You can edit and delete it, regardless of the warning contained inside of it. After deleting its contents, save it and set its attributes to 'read only' (if you are using Win95 for example, right click and then click on 'properties'), 'hidden' and 'system'. You can also edit them, choosing to delete just some lines. You could delete DoubleCLick's lines for example, and use only some sites' cookies. But in order to allow some sites to read them, just set the 'read only' attribute. That's all.

If you are using Internet Explorer, you have to know that it doesn't stores cookies in a single text file, but it stores each cookie as a single file inside of the windows\cookies directory. So you have to edit all of them.

You can disable them in your web browser

In Netscape Navigator 1.xx through 2.xx (hey, update your browser!) the cookies preferences can't be set. So Navigator accepts all cookies. In Netscape Navigator 3.xx you can choose to be warned when a cookie is set, so you can refuse it. In order to do that, go to 'Options', 'Network preferences', 'Protocols'. If you don't change any setting, Navigator will accept all cookies. In Netscape Communicator 4.xx you can: a) accept all cookies, b) accept only cookies sent back to the originating server, c) disable all cookies, d) 'warn me befor accepting a cookie'. Go to 'Edit', 'Preferences', 'Advanced'. If you don't change any setting, Communicator will accept all cookies.

In Internet Explorer: go to 'View' menu, then click on 'Options', 'Advanced' and finally click on 'Warn before accepting cookies'.

You can use some specialized software

There are several programs to handle cookies, here a short list:

  1. Cookie Master - Freeware (Windows)
  2. Cookie Pal 1.0 - Shareware
  3. Complete Cleanup - Shareware
  4. Cookie Crusher - Shareware
  5. Crumbler 97 - Shareware
  6. IEClean 32 - Shareware
  7. NSClean 32 - Shareware
  8. PGPCutter - Shareware

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