The case of the disappearing cookie

Last night I had my About.com cookie in my cookies folder. I looked and saw it. However today when I went to log in, I had to type in my screen name and password instead of being able to click on the gray button to log on. I checked my cookies folder, and it was gone. I never deleted it and I don't use any cookie blocking software, nor is IE set to block cookies, so where could my cookie have gone?

 

shadowhawk--Looked in IE Help|Cookies and in one of the topics found the statement
"Cookies from Web sites that use your personally identifiable information without your implicit consent will be deleted from your computer when you close Internet Explorer "
Don't know if that is the cause of what you describe. Versions of IE earlier than IE6 used to allow for deletion of "per session" cookies on shut down, but that is not the case (I think) for IE6.
(Or maybe in the process of "looking" at the about cookie last night you accidentally deleted it?)

 

I've now set IE 6 to accept ALL cookies. AdWatch can delete the bad ones. Hopefully this ends my troubles with my About.com login.

 

shadowhawk--I know nothing about AdWatch, so maybe this is duplication of effort. By allowing all cookies, you are probably going to be inundated by cookies. (I have no idea how AdWatch decides which are good and which are bad.)
Suggest you download and use Cookie Jar. It will show you what cookies have been downloaded (without making any judgement on badness) since your last scan with it, and allow you to keep or delete if you do not want to keep.
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/cookiejar.asp

 

I did a little more digging in my privacy settings. I've now set IE to always allow cookies from About.com and I have it set to prompt for 3rd party cookies and allow 1st party. What's the difference?

 

1st party, the page you are viewing.
3rd party, a cookie from another website, such as ad tracking cookies.

 

shadowhawk--I would suggest setting third party cookies to Block. I doubt you will ever want one, so why have to click the query box every time?
And try Cookie Jar. It runs only when you ask it to scan.