How Do I Delete Cookies off my Computer?
Cookies on the computer help a website know if you’ve visited it, what you did while there, and other bits of information that can help the website make your experience there even more enjoyable the next time around. Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t want the website to know you were there, and you don’t want a trace on your computer of what you did on a particular website. In these situations, you may wish to delete your cookies, and thankfully most modern web browsers make it quite easy.
While one can simply turn cookies off entirely before browsing the internet, this can result in many websites not working properly. For example, many shopping carts make use of cookies to track your browsing session, and disabling cookies may mean that the store becomes completely unusable. So generally people find it preferable to keep cookies enabled, and delete cookies periodically to remove any unwanted data left on their computer.
One questionable area cookies are often used is in advertising tracking. Many advertising companies place a cookie on a user’s computer when they visit one site, and use it to track them as they visit other sites. This allows the advertiser to more specifically target the user with ads, but leaves many people feeling like they are being watched while they travel from one site to the next. Of course, a person is not actually watching them, but the questions of privacy and anonymity raised are legitimate, and many people wish to delete cookies between browsing sessions to ensure that data isn’t collected on them to any large extent.
Some modern browsers actually allow for these third-party cookies to be selectively denied, while allowing cookies from a single website to be left on. This fixes the problem of things like shopping carts not working, while also stopping advertisers from tracking browsing sessions across multiple sites. In many cases, this removes the need to delete cookies entirely, but in other cases it may still be desired.
All modern web browsers have an easy way to delete cookies, and most allow for selective deletion as well as complete deletion. It is also generally possible to manually delete cookies, if the in-program options are not enough. Different versions may have different techniques that need to be used, but they are generally quite similar.
In Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8, for example, one can go to the Start Menu, and then select either Run or type "cmd" in the Start Search box, depending on what version of Windows is running. From there, type in "inetcpl.cpl," and open that. In Internet Explorer 6, one then selects the General tab, then clicks Delete Cookies under the Internet Properties box, under Temporary Internet Files. In Internet Explorer 7 and 8, select the General tab, then click Delete under Browsing History in the Internet Properties box, and then click Delete Cookies.
In newer versions of Firefox, on the other hand, one can simply go to the Tools menu, select Clear Private Data, and make sure the Cookies box is checked. A similar procedure can be followed for Opera. Special programs also exist to delete cookies, which with one click will find all cookies from all common browsers and delete them all. Although this may be more than most people need, for those who want to be absolutely certain no website can track them based on cookies, this is the way to go.
Written by Brendan McGuigan
