|
| |
A cookie is a piece of data which is stored on your local computer by a web
site that you have visited using your web browser. The data that is stored
is then sent back to the web site every time you visit that site. The data
can contain information such as a user name and password for that site,
items you are purchasing on a shopping site, or any other information the
web site desires.
| Why
should I be concerned about cookies? |
There has been a lot of coverage in the press about cookies and potential
privacy issues. The main issue is that web sites can keep track of your
movements on their site by using cookies, so that they will know exactly
where you have and have not been. They are increasingly used by companies
and advertisers to monitor and accumulate Internet user data. Many people
feel that this is an invasion of privacy.
| How
does Cookie Pal help? |
In order to prevent cookies from being stored and sent back to web sites the
user must set an option to be warned before a cookie is accepted. This is
true for both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Setting
this option causes the browser to pop up an alert every time a cookie is
received and the user must respond to this alert before continuing. Some web
pages can contain up to 20 or 30 cookies, meaning a lot of annoying
confirmations for the user - you shouldn't have to say "no" this
many times! Cookie Pal intercepts the alerts that would normally be
displayed and responds to them on your behalf before they are even displayed
on screen - your only clue that a cookie has been accepted or rejected will
be a brief change in the task bar icon for Cookie Pal.
Cookie Pal also allows you to set up lists of sites that you do and do not
want to accept cookies from, and then Cookie Pal can respond automatically
when a cookie is received from those specific sites. This allows you to
accept cookies from certain sites (some shopping sites for example will not
work correctly without cookies, or you may need to accept cookies from web
addresses on your company LAN), rather than just rejecting all cookies which
come your way, although this too can be done with Cookie Pal.
|
|
