Excessive Cookies

I am not sure this is correct forum, but here goes.
I recently removed Norton System Works 2001 and installed a newer version, Norton System Works 2005.

I now seem to be getting an excessive number of cookies in my Temporary files which I must clean out every evening before shutting down.

Is the occurence of a large number of "cookies" appearing been reported for Norton System Works 2005 or is it due to something else? Curious.

Windows 98 OS, Mozilla Firefox browser, old computer, 160 RAM, 4 GB memory.

 

Hello Indycolt,

Don't use Norton System works of any year, so I'll leave that to someone who does.

Controlling cookies with IE is a lot easier than it used to be. IE tools > Internet options > Privacy tab > you can experiment with the settings starting with the slider, setting it from medium and up. What the settings do is spelled out as the slider moves up. For further options > advanced tab: all 3rd party cookies can be blocked - this BTW blocks a lot of cookies, since mostly this would only allow Domain cookies (.com). Further options are to override all other settings on a per site basis, so if a particular site demands 3rd party cookies, it can be allowed.

Regards - Charles

 

Hello Charlesvar;

Thanks. I will try your suggestion out in both IE and Firefox.

Indycolt

 

Indycolt--Additional ideas on blocking and managing cookies.
Use your Restricted Sites in IE Tools|Internet Options|Security tab|Restricted Sites. You can add sites manually or IESpyAds will populate Restricted Sites for you (and you can edit if you wish).
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/resource.htm
Use a cookie manager. I use Cookie Jar. It will show you what cookies you have acquired since your last use of CJ and you can decide to delete, allow or even ban (for the future).
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/programs.asp?Program=Cookie Jar
I do not why NSW 2005 and 2001 should be any different concerning cookies. Perhaps you had some feature activated in the latter but do not in the former. Actually 2005 has a new Cleanup feature which could allow deletion of cookies which I do not think was in 2001.

 

I second the recommendation for Jason's Cookie Jar! I wouldn't be without it and I'm not one to run anything that isn't important and performing a useful function. The Cookie Jar doesn't actually "Run" and uses no resources. It makes use of the tools the system already has in place to do its magic.\

Choose which cookies to keep and Cookie Jar will dump all others at boot. You can also dump them manually if you like. Once you set it to your preferences, it never bothers you. That sure cuts down on the malwares being carried over.

 

Hi 'dude,

Always read good things about Cookie Jar, but, I think cookies as malware is way over hyped and given the first part of your quote, rather just fiddle with IE's cookie control, since, as you point out, that's what Cookie Jar is using anyway.

Regards - Charles

 

My personal observation on more than one occasion shows AdAware detecting Malwares IF I forget to dump the cookies before running it. As a test, I then close out Adaware without allowing it to clean them and merely let Cookie Jar dump all the cookies I don't want saved. Then I run AdAware again and, you guessed it, nothing detected. Now I don't say those cookies are necessarily bad but they must have something going against them if Adaware doesn't like them. As a standard, I dump the cookies prior to the AA scan. (when I don't forget. )

 

Ok, the next time look at the tac report on those "malwares ": right click on the items. They are "tracking" cookies - not malware by defination. That's a matter of user preference and deleting them in the majority of cases works against the user in the sense that all those free sites derive income from tracking site/page usage. The irony is that people GIVE personal info away all the time but seem to resent anonymous tracking by sites.

There are far more serious malware issues than tracking cookies - this fixation on cookies gets stupifying after awhile.

Regards - Charles

 

True Charles, but I've always taken the approach of letting AdAware dump anything it finds and let the market place take care of itself without invading my privacy by bird-dogging my moves. YMMV I'm sure they won't miss me and I sure don't miss them since I keep those that I would.

Since I've gone to the trouble of running it and spending a few minutes twiddling my thumbs, I'll be darned if I ignore the results.

 

LOL, I do the same thing, I just don't go out of my way in prevention. I do really what Indycolt wants to do - cut down on the amount of "stuff" on my system. I clean everthing out once a week anyway.

Regards - Charles

 

To everyone, especially CHARLESVAR:

Thanks for all the helpful comments about excessive cookies. I have discovered that by using Firefox I probably am not covered by any program in my new installation of Norton System Works, so that the cookies will always appear in a greater quantity than usual.

I will manually and periodically clean out cookies in my Temporary file as always and at least daily.

I have an e-mail letter request sent to the Symantec troubleshooters. We will see what they say, but I seriously doubt that anything will come of it.

Live is full of little problems and we must all endure.

Thanks