Newk's
Nook: At least once a year I like to run an article about cookies.
These misunderstood pieces of HTML code need to be discussed.
A
cookie is a tiny
little file that's stored on your computer. It contains the address of
the Web
site and codes that your browser sends back to the Web site each time
you visit
a page there. Cookies don't usually contain personal information or
anything
dangerous; they're usually innocuous and useful.
When you
browse the Web, the Web server needs to
know who you are if
you want
to do things that require logging in or putting items in a virtual
shopping
cart or completing any other process that requires that the Web site
remember
information about you as you move from page to page. The most commonly
used
trick that allows Web sites to keep track of what you're doing is
called setting
cookies.
If
you plan to shop on the
Web or use other Web services, cookies make it all possible. When
you're using
an airline reservation site, for example, the site uses cookies to keep
the
flights you're reserving separate from the ones that other users are
reserving
at the same time. On the other hand, you might use your credit card to
purchase
something on a Web site and the site uses a cookie to remember the
account with
your credit card number. Suppose that you provide this information from
a
computer at work and the next person to visit that site uses the same
computer.
That person could, possibly, make purchases on your credit card. Oops.
Internet
users have various
feelings about cookies. Some people don't care about them, and some of
folks
view them as an unconscionable invasion of privacy. You get to decide
for
yourself. Contrary to rumor, cookie files cannot get other information
from
your hard disk, give you a bad haircut, or otherwise mess up your life.
They
collect only information that the browser tells them about. In both
Firefox and
Internet Explorer, you can control which sites can store cookies on
your
computer.
Choose
Tools --> Options,
click the Privacy category, and look in the Cookie section. If the
Accept
Cookies from Sites check box isn't selected, select it. Set the Keep
Until
option to They Expire. Or, if you want to decide which sites can store
cookies
on your computer, set Keep Until to Ask Me Every Time. Firefox doesn't
give you
the option of accepting first-party cookies and refusing third-party
cookies,
except by configuring it to ask you each time a site wants to set a
cookie.
You
can specify which sites
can and cannot store cookies by clicking the Exceptions button. You can
enter
the Web addresses that you definitely trust with cookies (like the
shopping
sites that you frequent) or that you don't trust (like advertising
sites).
You
can take a look at the
cookies on your computer at any time. Click the Show Cookies button and
scroll
down the list of sites. If you see some that you don't recognize or
that sound
suspicious, click the Remove Cookies button.
Use
the Tools --> Internet
Options command to display the Internet Options dialog box. The cookie
controls
are on the Privacy tab, so click it. By default, Internet Explorer sets
your
privacy level to Medium, allowing cookies from the server you contacted
but not
from third-party servers (ones other than the one
that provided the page
you're viewing).