COOKIES and POPUP Harassment

"Cookies and Popups"

What are They ?

   A cookie is a short piece of data which is sent from a web server to your web browser when your browser visits that server's site.

   The cookie is then stored on the your computer, but it is not an executable program and cannot do anything to harm your machine. (It's a text file)

   There are many rumors about what a cookie can do, causing much concern and even frightening many internet users.

   Any computer (PC and Mac) that uses a modern and/or web browser can receive cookies.

   They Do Not damage files or systems. Cookies are only used to identify a web user, though they may be used to track THAT user's browsing habits.

Here are a few more Facts:

    ● Cookies cannot be used by a website to get data or view data off
        your hard drive.

    ● A site can only access a cookie that has been set from its own domain,
       It cannot access any other cookies from your computer.

    ● Cookies do not scan or read hard drives.

    ● Cookies do not hold viruses and do not put them on your computer

    ● There are many ways in which you are traced on the web; cookies act
       like personal tags sending lots of information back to the site that set
       the cookie.

    ● The only information contained in a cookie is what you voluntarily gave to
       the website that created the cookie.

    ● Cookies are not always bad, and can be used for things like personalizing
       a site, setting personal preferences, or speeding things up on the web.

    ● People who have physical access to your machine can view ALL cookies
       on your hard drive. This can easily tell people where and when you surf.

   Cookies are stored in multiple places on your machine and users can easily figure out what sites you have visited by scanning your cookies.

   Even worse than that, almost all adult sites set cookies- AND you can have them set by accidentally opening up an adult spam or just by mistyping a web address!

   Temporary files are where your computer writes to save data. Unfortunately, temporary files tend to pile up and leave evidence about what you are working on, where you have been, etc.

   .CHK files are often corrupt data that windows has restored for you to check out later. .CHK files have been known to contain e-mails, documents, and even chat logs!

   Are there any of these files on your hard drive? To find out, Click on your START button, then FIND, select FILES and FOLDERS, in the NAME box, enter *.CHK and do a search of your harddrive.

"Cookies do some Good things that make your browsing and web surfing more enjoyable"

Cookies and shopping Sites

   They are used by Internet shopping sites to keep track of you and your shopping cart. When you first visit an Internet shopping site, you are sent a cookie containing the name of a shopping cart. Each time you select an item to purchase, that item is added to the shopping cart. When you are done with your shopping, the checkout page lists all the items in the shopping cart tied to that cookie.

   Without cookies, you would have to keep track of all the items you want to buy and type them into the checkout page or buy each item, one at a time.

   Another method is for the shopping site to send a separate cookie containing the item number to your browser whenever you select an item to purchase. Your browser sends all those cookies along with the request for the checkout page. The checkout page uses the cookies to make a list of the items you want to purchase.

Cookies and Custom Home Pages

    Another use is to create customized home pages. A cookie is sent to your browser for each of the items you expect to see on your custom home page. Whenever you request your custom home page your cookies are sent along with the request to tell the server which items to display.

           "Cookies also do some other things that are not so Good

   One of the less admirable uses of cookies, and the one that is causing a lot of controversy, is their use as a device for tracking the browsing and buying habits of individual web users. On a single web site or a group of web sites, cookies can be used to see what web pages you visit and how often you visit them. This information is also in the server's log files and so the use of a cookie here does not increase a server's ability to track you, it just makes it easier.

   There are Cookie Killer programs and nearly all web browsers have an option to block cookies, but forbidding them to be used when you are browsing often impairs your full use of the sites you are visiting.

What's Your Opinion on PopUps? Read Ours HERE

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Guide to FREE Spyware removal tools

________________
Are you being bothered by mysterious message popups?

ISPs and governments are powerless to stop it. There are no laws governing these types of messages yet.

Messenger Spam is the fastest growing type of unsolicited advertising
on the Internet today! and has been recorded as growing as much as 1500% a month.

You are not protected! If you haven't received a pop up message through Messenger, you are guaranteed to any day now.

It is next to impossible to trace the senders of such messages

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