A cookie is a small file that a website places on your computer in order to store information. The entire process is harmless, and can also be helpful because cookies do useful things by saving you from the trouble of logging into a site every time you open and close your browser, storing your shopping cart information between sessions, and several other helpful time savers. The ones that give cookies a bad name actually track users without their knowledge and help advertisers and several other entities build profiles of users. Many people aim at limiting the amount of information that is collected about them, and they do so by limiting the kind of cookies that their browser accepts and retains.<\/p>\n
Cookies are considered to be a vital browser feature and you will actually find yourself unable to log into websites if you disable cookies. Cookies are tiny pieces of information stored by websites on your computer. They only comprise of bits of text and nothing else. The text can be a session ID, user ID, or any other text. For instance, web pages can be configurable \u2013 it is possible for a web page to have a Hide link capable of hiding a specific element on the page. This setting can be saved by the page on your computer with a cookie. When the page is loaded in the future, it will be able to analyze the cookie and automatically hide the element. After you clear your cookies, you will be logged out of all websites and these websites will not remember any settings you have changed on them. Cookies are thus very common and you probably have hundreds or even thousands stored in your browser even now.<\/p>\n
Cookies are stored and managed by your web browser. You will first find a list of websites storing cookies and then you will be able to view the cookies themselves \u2013 despite the fact that it is usually not interesting to look at the content of the cookies \u2013 in your browser\u2019s settings. If you use multiple web browsers on your computer, you will notice that each browser has its own set of cookies. The\u00a0browser cookies<\/a>\u00a0can be managed from its settings window. The cookies will also get deleted by each browser\u2019s Clear Private Data tool.<\/p>\n You should bear in mind that not all cookies are used for benign purposes. There are cookies also used for tracking your online activity. Ad servers send cookies along with ads in order to identify viewers and track all their online activities. This information is critical for building profiles of us as viewers that can be used for pushing relevant ad content at us whether we really like it or not. Some of these tracking cookies could also tie your online activities to your real-world identity.<\/p>\n Managing cookies is just part of a set of simple actions you can take to safeguard all your information and your privacy. If you don\u2019t want other users of your computer to see your online activities, you can effortlessly clear the history of visited websites that each browser tracks. Explained below are steps that will help\u00a0delete cookies<\/a>\u00a0in a few popular web browsers.<\/p>\n Google Chrome<\/strong> Mozilla Firefox<\/strong> Internet Explorer<\/strong> Should You be Worried About a Forged Cookie<\/strong><\/p>\n A forged cookie is like a little token that is stored in a browser; however, it has been reverse engineered by the bad guys focusing on tricking a website into thinking it was the original cookie. Wondering whether you should be worried about such a cookie, Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security at SentinelOne, reported to NBC News that “usually this type of forged cookie hack is extremely difficult,” and it would “only be possible after a very deep hack” into a website. Hence, you can place forged cookies low on the list of scary things to worry about on the internet. However, Grossman stated that changing your password on a regular basis should theoretically negate any forged cookies – should they even exist.<\/p>\n cWatch Comes To Your Rescue<\/strong><\/p>\n A cookie is used for identifying a website user. As mentioned earlier, it is a small piece of text sent to a browser by a website accessed via the browser. It carries information about that visit like remembering the website visited preferred language and several other settings. This data is stored by the browser and it is then used to access the features of the website or the next time the same site is visited in order to make the access more personalized. If a website happens to use cookies for authentication, then it could be possible for an attacker to obtain unauthorized access to that site by obtaining the cookie.<\/p>\n Website security and browser security are thus extremely important to protect your identity and sensitive data. For instance, cookies are also used by online shopping carts. As you browse for DVDs on a movie shopping site, you will be able to add them to your shopping cart without logging in. Your shopping cart does not \u201cforget\u201d the DVDs, even as you jump from one page to another page on the shopping site, because they are preserved via\u00a0browser cookies<\/a>. It is also possible to use cookies in online advertising, to remember all your interests and then show you relevant ads as you surf the web.<\/p>\n By default a web browser is available with an operating system and it is set up with a default configuration which does not have all secure features enabled in it. Failing to secure your web browser leads to problems brought about by the installation of malware, viruses, worms, spyware etc into a computer and this indeed may cause intruders to take control over your computer. This indeed highlights the need to enable efficient security features in your web browser in order to minimize several computer-related risks.<\/p>\nHow to\u00a0Delete Cookies<\/a>\u00a0(or)\u00a0Remove Cookies<\/a><\/h2>\n
Clearing Cookies in Popular Web Browsers<\/h2>\n
\n\u2022 Click the Chrome menu button (three horizontal bars) and select \u201cSettings\u201d from the drop-down menu.
\n\u2022 The Settings screen displays on a new tab. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and then click \u201cShow\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 advanced settings\u201d.
\n\u2022 Click \u201cContent settings\u201d in the Privacy section.
\n\u2022 The Content Settings dialog box displays. Click \u201cAll cookies and site data\u201d in the Cookies section.
\n\u2022 The Cookies and site data dialog box shows you how many cookies have been saved for each site that saved cookies on your computer. Each site comprises of buttons representing each of the cookies for the site. To delete a single cookie from a site, click one of the buttons and then click \u201cRemove\u201d.
\n\u2022 Delete all the cookies from that site in order to click the \u201cX\u201d button to the right.
\n\u2022 To remove all the cookies for all the websites in the list, click \u201cRemove All\u201d.
\n\u2022 When you have completed deleting cookies, click \u201cDone\u201d on the Cookies and site data dialog box and again on the Content settings dialog box.
\n\u2022 If you know you want to delete all cookies and website data, not individually, there is a quick way to do this. On the Settings tab, click \u201cClear browsing data\u201d under Privacy.
\n\u2022 On the Clear browsing data dialog box, ensure that the \u201cCookies and other site and plugin data\u201d box is checked. You can also indicate a time frame for which you want to delete the cookies from the drop-down list at the top of the dialog box. You can select from the past day, the past week, the past hour, the last 4 weeks, or the beginning of time. Click \u201cClear browsing data\u201d once you\u2019re ready to delete all your cookies.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Open the main Firefox menu (three horizontal bars) and then click \u201cOptions\u201d.
\n\u2022 The Options open on a new tab. Click Privacy in the list of items on the left side of the tab.
\n\u2022 There are two ways to examine the cookies saved on your computer, based on which option is selected in the Firefox will dropdown list. Click the \u201cremove individual cookies\u201d link if \u201cRemember History\u201d is selected.
\n\u2022 click the \u201cShow Cookies\u201d button on the right if \u201cUse Custom Settings for History\u201d is selected in the dropdown list.
\n\u2022 The Cookies dialog box shows a list of all the websites that have put cookies on your computer. Click the arrow next to a site name in order to view a list of the individual cookies placed by that site. To delete just one cookie, select the cookie in the list, and click \u201cRemove Selected\u201d.
\n\u2022 To delete all cookies for a specific website, select the website folder and click \u201cRemove Selected\u201d.
\n\u2022 Click \u201cRemove All\u201d to delete all cookies for all websites in the list.
\n\u2022 When you have completed managing your cookies, click Close to close the Cookies dialog box.
\n\u2022 You are brought back to the Options tab. Just like in Chrome, there is also a quicker way to delete all cookies. Ensure that the Privacy screen is active on the Options tab and click the \u201cclear your recent history\u201d link under History. This option is available only for the \u201cRemember History\u201d option, not when \u201cUse Custom Settings for History\u201d is selected in the Firefox will dropdown list.
\n\u2022 If the \u201cNever Remember History\u201d option is selected in the Firefox will dropdown list, the \u201cclear all current history\u201d link is available. The Never Remember History option causes Firefox to restart in private browsing mode.
\n\u2022 Clicking either \u201cclear all current history\u201d or \u201cclear your recent history\u201d opens the Clear All History dialog box. Here you can select a Time range to clear.
\n\u2022 Make sure the Cookies box is checked and then, click \u201cClear Now\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Click the gear button in the upper-right corner of the browser window and select \u201cInternet options\u201d from the drop-down menu.
\n\u2022 The Internet Options dialog box displays. To view and delete individual cookies, click \u201cSettings\u201d in the Browsing history section.
\n\u2022 The Website Data Settings dialog box displays. Ensure that the Temporary Internet Files tab is active and click \u201cView files\u201d.
\n\u2022 Windows Explorer opens displaying the contents of the INetCache folder. By default, the files are displayed as tiles, but you will have to display the details for the files in order to see the types of files. To display the details for the files, click the down arrow on the \u201cMore options\u201d button above the list of files.
\n\u2022 Select \u201cDetails\u201d from the pop-up menu.
\n\u2022 Scroll down until you find files labeled as cookies. They should have \u201ccookie\u201d in the Name and Internet Address. You can select one or more cookie files and then delete them either by pressing the Delete key or by right-clicking on them and selecting \u201cDelete\u201d. Hold down the Shift key while you press Delete in order to permanently delete the selected cookie files.
\n\u2022 A confirmation dialog box displays. Click \u201cYes\u201d if you really want to delete the selected cookie(s).
\n\u2022 After deleting individual cookies, you can close the File Explorer window by clicking the \u201cClose\u201d button in the upper-right corner of the window.
\n\u2022 To delete all your cookies, first close the Website Data Settings dialog box by clicking either \u201cOK\u201d or \u201cCancel\u201d.
\n\u2022 This brings you back to the Internet Options dialog box. Click \u201cDelete\u201d in the Browsing history section.
\n\u2022 To delete all the cookies and website data, check the \u201cCookies and website data\u201d checkbox on the Delete Browsing History dialog box. Select any other desired options and click \u201cDelete\u201d to remove the selected items.
\n\u2022 You are brought back to the Internet Options dialog box. Click \u201cOK\u201d to close it.
\n\u2022 A pop-up message gets displayed at the bottom of the IE window telling you that the selected browsing history has been deleted. There is an \u201cX\u201d button on the far right of the pop-up window you can click to close the message.<\/p>\n