Posts Tagged ‘delete cookies’
BY now, most people have at least heard of internet cookies, that they are considered bad things, and that home computer users should delete them. Unfortunately, relatively few people understand what exactly cookies are, what they do, why they are considered bad, and how to delete cookies from your computer. This article will explain all this to you.
What Are Cookies?
Cookies are files stored on your computer by the different web sites you visit. Cookies are simple text files, not programs, viruses, spyware, or malware. They do not cause pop-ups when web surfing, and do not make your computer run slower.
What Do Cookies Do?
Cookies are intended to enhance your web surfing experience. They enable web page to “recognize” you as an exclusive user of that web site. When you return to a site you have already visited, the cookie for that site allows your browser to “remember” your personal settings and preferences for that particular web site.
For example, let’s say you visit Amazon.com, put a book in your shopping cart, and then leave the site without checking out. That book in your shopping cart is saved in the Amazon.com cookie. That way, when you return to Amazon, you’ll find that book still in your shopping cart, waiting to be purchased.
Why Are Cookies Considered Bad?
There are two reasons.
First, although most cookies are not harmful—and in some cases, quite helpful—they do store sensitive personal data. User names, passwords, addresses, account and order numbers, and even credit card and bank account numbers can be stored in cookies. Although harmless in and of themselves, they can be accessed by hackers and spyware to get this sensitive, private information and use it for identity theft.
Second, some cookies also track your internet usage. For example, they may record how often you have visited that site, what other site you have visited, or what you have purchased. This is mainly used for marketing, such as Amazon being able to recommend other books based on what you have bought in the past. Although some people don’t mind this, other people are uncomfortable with this and consider it an invasion of privacy.
For you are uncomfortable with either of these potential problems of cookies, you may want to know how to delete cookies from your computer.
How Do You Delete Cookies?
The process differs slightly depending on which web browser you use. This article will explain how to delete cookies from your computer for the two most common web browsers, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. For maximum privacy and security, you’ll want to do this after each web surfing session.
Internet Explorer
1. In Internet Explorer, click on “Tools” on the Menu bar at the top
2. A menu will appear. Click on “Internet Options.”
3. The Internet Options box will appear. Click on the “General” tab.
4. Click on the “Delete Cookies” button.
Mozilla Firefox
1. In Firefox, click on “Tools” on the Menu bar at the top.
2. A menu will appear. Click on “Options.”
3. The Options box will appear. Click on the “Privacy” tab.
4. Click on the “Show Cookies” button.
5. The Cookies box will appear. Click on the “Remove All Cookies” button.