Many sites will add cookies on your computer without
your knowledge or consent. Cookies do not need to be malevolent, they
can store your username and password for a restricted site to which you
have subscribed, perhaps paying for the subscription because there is
no other means of accessing wanted/needed information.
However, there are cookies, and associated web-sites, that are not as
benign as the site adding them would wish you to think.
The cookies may not be just session cookies that self-destruct soon after
you leave the site, but cookies that persist long into the future - to
2009, 2030 or beyond - continuing to collect data of where you visit on
the net, what you look at ...... The information from such persistent
cookies is passed surreptitiously while you are working on-line, either
to a site you have visited, or to third-party sites that have paid for
the data.
There are also some sites will not let you view their (as yet still free)
content, despite having jumped the hoop of
providing a user name/email and password, unless you allow them to
set a cookie (or cookies). One such site is washingtonpost.com.
How to deal with this, if your browser is set to not accept cookies,
and you would prefer not to change that setting?
- Set the browser security settings [1]
to ask before it adds a cookie to your computer. That way, only the
cookies you choose are added to your machine.
But this does mean that, possibly, there may be nosey persistent cookies
put on your computer without your full knowledge or control. Another
nuisance of this setting is having to decide and answer for every cookie-adding
site that you visit.
- If you are using a MS operating system,
then install a utility program, WinPatrol,
that will watch what cookies are put on your computer, and ask you at
chosen intervals whether you wish to delete them. Cookies you wish to
keep, those for subscribed sites, can be checked so they will not be
removed by WinPatrol,
set your browser to accept cookies.
You can also set unwanted keywords (nuts in WinPatrol’s
jargon), for instance click, so that cookie urls that include
that keyword are rejected.
WinPatrol includes various computer and net utilities, such
as one which will check whether you intended a new program to be installed
or, with the latest version, another which allows you to lock the HOSTS
file [more on this in Software for net security, in preparation]
against unsanctioned changes. Although WinPatrol is
free, a small one-time fee gives access to further features.
endnotes
- Examples under
development
M$ Internet Explorer :
- On the menu bar, choose Tools >
Internet Options.
- In Internet Options, choose the Security
tab.
- Choose the Internet icon (a green/blue globe).
- Click on Personalise level button.
- Scroll down to the Cookie section.
- There, choose the option you want, either
- Authorise session cookies
or
- Authorise cookies stocked on your computer
and set to Activate or Ask or
Disactivate, as you wish.
- Click OK until the Internet Options window has
closed.
Mozilla FireFox (Netscape-type) :
- On the menu bar, choose Tools > Options.
- From the list, choose Cookies.
- Select Enable for originating Website only checkbox.
- Then choose which option you want from
- accept normally
- Current session only
- Ask for each cookie
- Click OK until the Options window has closed.
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