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Reducing your intake of cookies
You may have read about ‘cookies’ and wondered why
these tiny files with a sweet sounding often receive
such a bad press. Well, as with all things, they
should be consumed in moderation. |
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Cookies are small files saved to your computer by certain
websites with the general aim of improving your experience
when revisiting certain pages.
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A cookie may contain
information such as your user ID, password, preferences or
other data and can speed up the use of some sites. For
example, if you frequently use a website that prompts you to
select a preferred language, a cookie file on your PC can
remember your chosen language so you don’t have to make this
selection each time you visit. |
Many Anti-Malware suites will detect and remove
cookies created by sites with poor reputations. A
lot of web sites still use cookies to maintain
perfectly reasonable information, such as your
preferred screen layout or language. Typically the
data is stored in a form that only makes sense to
the originating site, so they can’t be easily used
to spy on your use of other sites (though they can
leave an indicator of sites visited, a trail of
cookie crumbs?). |
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So why do cookies get such a bad press?
The catch is that you don't always know what data a cookie
has been programmed to record and there are both good and
bad cookies out there. Whilst many exist purely to enhance
your web experience, others have very different motives and
you can quickly end up with an array of malicious programs
stored on your hard drive. A malicious cookie can capture
and store all kinds of data you may not want it to such as
personal details, credit card information, your address and
much more. This information may then be accessed repeatedly
each time you visit certain websites.
Limiting
cookies by Internet zone |
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If you use Internet Explorer to browse the web, you’ll find
four categorisations of website or ‘zones’ defined within
the Internet Options settings. The default zones are known
as:
a)
Local Intranet - Websites located on your local network.
These sites do not have to communicate over the Internet to
be accessed.
b)
Trusted Sites - A list of websites that you trust not to
harm your computer, such as sites you have identified as
properly encrypted.
c)
Restricted Sites - A list of websites that are known or
suspected to be harmful to your computer.
d)
Internet - All other sites that don't fall under the other
three categories.
By default, cookies are allowed for all zones except the
Restricted Sites zone. However, if you want to limit cookies
for a particular zone, you can customise these settings by
following the instructions below: |
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Select settings
for Internet Zones |
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1.
In Internet Explorer, on the Tools
menu, click
Internet Options.
In the
Internet Options
dialog box, click the
Privacy tab.
2.
In the Settings section, move the slider up or down to
adjust the settings.
3.
Moving the slider up incrementally increases the Internet
security on your computer, so that cookies are not accepted.
Moving the slider down incrementally decreases the security,
so that cookies are accepted. Check with the IT department
for your organization if you are not sure which settings are
appropriate to use.
4.
Also in the Settings section, click
Sites
to explicitly set a cookie policy for individual websites.
Here, you can specify which sites you want to allow or not
allow to use cookies. Enter the desired website address in
the
Address of website
text box. Click the
Block
button to block all cookies for the entered site, or the
Allow
button to allow all cookies for the entered site.
5.
Continue entering settings for each specific website for
which you want to set a cookie policy.
6.
Click
OK
to return to the
Internet Options
dialog box. Click
OK.
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Want to
delete the cookies already stored on your computer?
You may be concerned there are already cookies stored on
your computer containing personal information. If this is
the case, you can delete cookies and other temporary
Internet files by following these steps:
1.
In Internet Explorer, on the
Tools
menu, click
Internet Options.
2.
Make sure the
General
tab is selected. (This is the default.)
3.
In the Temporary Internet files section, click the
Delete
button. You will be prompted for confirmation before
continuing.
4.
The Temporary Internet files that you can delete are listed
and selected for deletion by default, including
Cookies.
Clear the check box beside any temporary Internet file types
that you
do not
want to delete.
5.
Click
OK.
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Visit our website |
Back to main e-zine |
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Delta Comtech Ltd
Artillery House, Heapy Street
Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 7JB |
Tel:
0844 412 8102
info@delta-comtech.co.uk |
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