Cookies

[Snowy Owl]

I have just checked the cookies that are being stored on my computer and there would appear to be dozens and dozens of them, many referring to sites that I may only have used once in the dim and distant past! How much room are these cookies taking up? Should I be taking the time to delete all those from sites that I'm unlikely ever to need again?

I'm using Firefox as my browser and have it set to allow all cookies at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[kujawski]

cookies can be a max size of 4kb (many are only a few bytes) (correct me if im wrong anyone), which means you can have quite a few,
i wouldnt worry,

as an example approx 25000 full size 4kb cookies will take up about 10 mb of disk space which is not a lot anyway

[VHG]

Cookies are taking up virtually no room as they are small text files.

However, some cookies are known as tracking cookies (they track the web sites you visit and also track any products you are looking for) and then send this information back to a central server.

This information is used to place target adverts on any web sites you visit.

So for example, if you are looking for a digital camera, and do lots of searches for them, and look for them on Amazon etc, this will be picked up by tracking cookies and will make sure adverts for digital cameras are placed on web sites you visit.

It is a good site to delete ALL your cookies on a regular basis (you can do this via your browser).

Some security products (like anti virus or adaware) will list all the tracking cookies on your computer and you can choose to delete just them all leave all your other cookies.

Note all cookies are bad, some of them store your userid and password (like this site) so it saves you logging on each time you visit.

[VHG]

>Note all cookies are bad

Sorry, this was meant to say

NOT all cookies are bad.....

[Snowy Owl]

Thanks folks for that info and all explained in good plain English! I'm most grateful to you both.