whats a cookie on the computer?

Question

anf how do i delete them

Answer 1

Why Sites Use Cookies?

There are numerous reasons why websites would want to use cookies. These range from statistical purposes, such as how many visitors came to the site. This can be further broken down into are they new visitors or actually repeating visitors and how often do they visit. The Website would actually create a unique id for each visitor and store this information into a database.

Cookies can be used to store your personal preferences, referred to as customizations, that you set while navigating their site. For instance, if you visit Yahoo.com, you can sign in to create your very own personal yahoo page where you can customize it according to your news and weather preferences after providing your zip code. You can even change the color of the page layout as well.

Online Shopping sites can use cookies to keep track of items that you add to their shopping carts and quick checkout options. The cookie will keep track of every item that you add to the shopping cart while you continue to browse through different pages or even entirely different sections of their site. Every item you add is stored within the Web site’s database along with a unique ID value that has been assigned to you. Therefore, when you select the check out option, the site automatically knows what items are in your cart by retrieving those selections from its database. This is why sites such as Amazon or eBay will prompt you to enable cookies in case you have disabled them.

Cookies also provide web designers and programmers with a quick and convenient method of keeping their site content fresh and up to date according to the interests of their users. Modern web servers use Cookies for back-end interaction as well, allowing them to securely store any personal data that the user has entered within a site. Therefore, on return visits the user now only has to enter partial information to access their account and purchases can be made quicker as their payment information is on file regarding their previous purchases.

In closing, as Cookies are actually small text files, they really can not damage your computer system or any files on your hard drive. Once again, they cannot transmit viruses as viruses are executable in nature. Some users may just not want to be tracked and this is one of the primary reasons why many people just disable accepting cookies.

Setting Your Browser To Accept or Reject Cookies

Internet Explorer, Netscape and Firefox provide you with some level of control regarding accepting and rejecting cookies. All Browsers have menu options that allow you to define their Cookie settings where you can enable a screening feature to receive a warning asking you if you would like to accept the site’s incoming cookie.

For The Latest Versions of Netscape and Firefox

Click on the word Tools, which is contained in your top tool bar area.

This will pull down a menu for you to now click on Options.

Then click on the Privacy icon where you will see a Cookies Tab to click on for Firefox.

Netscape displays a listing of Privacy Settings where you will see Cookies within the list.

When you enter this area, you can clear the Cookies or choose the option to accept them.

For The Latest Version of Internet Explorer

Click on the word Tools, which is contained in your top tool bar area.

This will pull down a menu for you to now click on Internet Options.

Then click on the Privacy tab located at the top of the options windows.

Then click on the Advanced tab to bring up the Advanced Privacy Settings windows.

This is the area where you can define how Cookies are handled on your system etc.

* You will probably recieve several answers to your question. Whoever helped you the most,please come back and give that person Best Answer.

Answer 2

Nearly any website you go to online will leave a cookie in your temp file. That is how a site can auto log you in or remember your info, and all sorts of other things that make browsing easier. But sometimes after a lot of surfing the get crowded and make your browsing slower, then it's time to clear them out. Go into your browser and click in

Tools > Internet Opstions...

go to the Privacy tab and tell it to delete temporary files and cookies and history. Then you should be good to go.

Answer 3

A cookie is information that a Web site puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. You go to Windows Explorer, and select Internet Temporary File folder, select all the files in that folder, and press the "Delete" button on your PC keyboard. It's that simple. My friend!

Answer 4

A cookie is simply a file that websites can save your personal settings/preferences to. You go to COntrol Panel ->Internet ->Clear Cookies

Answer 5

a cookies is simply soemm amount of data a web page stores on your computer to make loading faster.
On IE click tools internet options and the under general select the thing about deleat
On firefox hit Ctrl+H.

Answer 6

cookie a data doc that holds information for websites that you have went to and there server uses to identify your computer. look up at tools there, click it then internet options then click delete cookies. this will hwever log you out pof all websites that you are currently logged into.

Answer 7

An information device that allows web pages to be populated and or remember who you are just by browsing.

Answer 8

its a small program usedto track what ,when and were you are or doing on internet so that companys can harass you with their products by email.it keeps certain information about you and what you do on internet