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Cookies

This article explains cookies, their purpose, and how to delete the bad ones and keep the good ones.

Managing Cookies in Internet Explorer

Many Web sites place a small file called a "cookie" onto your computer to track your visits. Your computer probably contains hundreds of cookies right now.

Some cookies do good things. Web sites with weather information, for instance, often remember your hometown with cookies; the site can automatically display your local weather conditions during every visit. Other cookies remember your user name and password, keeping you from retyping it for every visit. Ever used a "Shopping Cart" while shopping online? Most shopping carts temporarily store information with cookies.

Other cookies do bad things. Some Web sites share their cookies' information with other sites. By "following you around" with cookie information, they create detailed user profiles. By combining and sifting vast databases of information, companies can figure out your name, e-mail address, interests, location, Web-browsing habits, and other things that are none of their business.

To begin managing your cookies -- allowing the good ones and blocking the bad ones -- follow the steps outlined in the three sections of this page:
  1. Prepare to manage your cookies
  2. Delete all your existing cookies
  3. Tell Internet Explorer to block all future cookies
  4. Tell Internet Explorer to accept cookies only from the sites you choose

Preparing to manage your cookies

Windows XP's Internet Explorer 6 lets you decide which sites may place cookies on your hard drive. Managing cookies like this requires extra effort and sacrifices on your part, however. Blocking cookies causes these problems and more:
Before deleting all your cookies, locate and write down all the user names and passwords you use for Web sites. You'll need to type them in when visiting sites that require you to log on.

Deleting all the cookies on your hard drive

Here's how to delete all your currently existing cookies. This only deletes the cookies for your own User Account. Repeat these steps for all user accounts that need to be purged of cookies.
  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu.
  3. Click the General tab.
  4. Click the Delete Cookies button.
    5. Click the Delete Cookies button to delete all cookies currently existing under your User Account.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Click the Delete Cookies button to delete all cookies currently existing under your User Account.
Although these steps delete all the cookies added during your past Web browsing sessions, they don't stop Web sites from depositing new cookies during your next visit. That requires another process, described below.

Keeping Web sites from placing cookies on your hard drive.

Here's how to block all Web sites and programs from placing cookies onto your hard drive. (Just as before, you need to repeat these steps for every User Account on your computer.) Remember -- unless you delete all cookies from your hard drive, described in the previous section, the Web sites can still access their existing cookies.
  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu.
  3. Click the Privacy tab
  4. Click the Advanced button.
  5. Choose "Override automatic cookie handling" to place a checkmark in its box.
  6. Choose Block under both "First Party Cookies" and "Third-party Cookies".
  7. Click to put a checkmark in the "Always allow session cookies" box.
  8. Click OK.

Choose these options to keep Web sites from placing cookies onto your computer.

I leave the "Always allow session cookies" box checked. Session cookies are deleted automatically when you close Internet Explorer. That strikes a useful compromise between protecting privacy and letting sites recognize you during your current visit. It puts control back in your hands: You remain unrecognized until you physically log onto the site.

Allowing some Web sites to use cookies.

Blocking cookies will prevent some Web sites from working on your computer. If you don't trust that site to use cookies wisely, don't visit it. But if you trust a few cookie-insistent sites, here's how to allow them -- and only them -- to use their cookies.

Follow the steps in the first two sections: Delete all existing cookies first, then block all new cookies.
  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu.
  3. Click the Privacy tab.
  4. Click the Edit button.
  5. Type the Address of the trusted Web site into the Address of Web site box, as seen below.
  6. Click the Allow button.
  7. Click the OK button.
Typing www.lego.com into the box and clicking Allow, for instance, allows all pages of that site to use cookies.

Typing www.lego.com into the box allows all pages of that site to use cookies.

Undoing your changes

Cookie management isn't for everybody. If you don't want to spend the effort required, here's how to undo your changes, and let Internet Explorer accept cookies the way it did before.
  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu.
  3. Click the Privacy tab.
  4. Click the Advanced button.
  5. Click to remove the checkmark from the words, "Override automatic cookie handling."
  6. Click the OK buttons to close the windows.
You'll find much more information about cookies by searching for "cookies" and "privacy" on Google.