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TECH TALK
By KCnet Tech - Roxanne Fryer
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Temporary Internet Files and
Cookies
A lot of people have no idea that they need to
clean out these files once in awhile, or even where they are. If these
files get corrupted, it can keep you from getting an internet page or can
ask you to enter your password over and over again to get your email in
Outlook Express.
What are Temporary Internet Files?
Temporary Internet Files are, in fact, the
cache of the Internet Explorer. This means that when you load a web page
with Internet Explorer, it is saved on your computer so that if you later
decide to open the same page again, it will open a lot faster. Temporary
Internet Files improve speed of web browsing and also make possible so
called offline browsing, which gives you the ability to open the web pages
from cache even when you are not connected to the Internet.
Despite all these positive things about Temporary
Internet Files, they have one big drawback: they compromise your privacy.
Everyone with access to your computer can look into your Temporary Internet
Files folder and see the sites that you have visited in the past. You can
manually delete the contents of Temporary Internet Files folder, but this
will not erase all traces of the pages because a special file called Index.dat
is placed in this folder and it will still preserve the names and even
the dates of your first visits to many pages.
What are Cookies?
False accusations about Cookies are:
Cookies are programs that Web sites put on
your hard disk. They sit on your computer gathering information about you
and everything you do on the Internet, and whenever the Web site wants
to it can download all of the information the cookie has collected. [wrong]
Definitions like that are fairly common in
the press. The problem is, none of that information is correct. Cookies
are not programs, and they cannot run like programs do. Therefore, they
cannot gather any information on their own. Nor can they collect any personal
information about you from your machine.
Here is a valid definition of a cookie: A cookie
is a piece of text that a Web server can store on a user's hard disk. Cookies
allow a Web site to store information on a user's machine and later retrieve
it. The pieces of information are stored as name-value pairs.
For example, a Web site might generate a unique
ID number for each visitor and store the ID number on each user's machine
using a cookie file.
If you use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to
browse the Web, you can see all of the cookies that are stored on your
machine. The most common place for them to reside is in a directory called
c:\windows\cookies. Each file is a text file that contains name-value pairs,
and there is one file for each Web site that has placed cookies on my machine.
You can see in the directory that each of
these files is a simple, normal text file. You can see which Web site placed
the file on your machine by looking at the file name (the information is
also stored inside the file). You can open each file by clicking on it.
For example, If you have visited goto.com,
the site may place a cookie on your machine. The cookie file for goto.com
contains the following information:
UserID
A9A3BECE0563982D www.goto.com/
This is called a single name-value pair. The
name of the pair is UserID, and the value is A9A3BECE0563982D. The first
time you visited goto.com, the site assigns a unique ID value and stores
it on your machine.
(Note that there probably are several other
values stored in the file after the three shown above. That is housekeeping
information for the browser.)
A name-value pair is simply a named piece
of data. It is not a program, and it cannot "do" anything. A Web site can
retrieve only the information that it has placed on your machine. It cannot
retrieve information from other cookie files, nor any other information
from your machine.
How Do Web Sites Use Cookies?
Cookies evolved because they solve a big problem
for the people who implement Web sites. In the broadest sense, a cookie
allows a site to store state information on your machine. This information
lets a Web site remember what state your browser is in. An ID is one simple
piece of state information -- if an ID exists on your machine, the site
knows that you have visited before. The state is, "Your browser has visited
the site at least one time," and the site knows your ID from that visit.
Web sites use cookies in many different ways. Here are some of the most
common examples:
Sites can accurately determine how many people
actually visit the site. It turns out that because of proxy servers, caching,
concentrators and so on, the only way for a site to accurately count visitors
is to set a cookie with a unique ID for each visitor. Using cookies, sites
can determine: How many visitors arrive, How many are new versus repeat
visitors, How often a visitor has visited. The way the site does this is
by using a database. The first time a visitor arrives, the site creates
a new ID in the database and sends the ID as a cookie. The next time the
user comes back, the site can increment a counter associated with that
ID in the database and know how many times that visitor returns.
Sites can store user preferences so that the
site can look different for each visitor (often referred to as customization).
For example, if you visit msn.com, it offers you the ability to "change
content/layout/color." It also allows you to enter your zip code and get
customized weather information.
E-commerce sites can implement things like
shopping carts and "quick checkout" options. The cookie contains an ID
and lets the site keep track of you as you add different things to your
cart. Each item you add to your shopping cart is stored in the site's database
along with your ID value. When you check out, the site knows what is in
your cart by retrieving all of your selections from the database. It would
be impossible to implement a convenient shopping mechanism without cookies
or something like them.
In all of these examples, note that what the
database is able to store is things you have selected from the site, pages
you have viewed from the site, information you have given to the site in
online forms, etc. All of the information is stored in the site's database,
and in most cases, a cookie containing your unique ID is all that is stored
on your computer.
So, How Do I Clean These Out?
Internet Explorer 6
1. Open Internet Explorer ( the big blue “e”)
2. Click on Tools > Internet Options
3. On the General tab, Click on Delete Cookies
4. When the conformation box comes up click
OK
5. When the hourglass goes away click on Delete
Files
6. When the conformation box comes up, click
in the box in front of “Delete all offline content” to put a check in the
box
7. then click OK
8. Click OK on the Internet Options box
Internet Explorer 7
1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click on Tools > Internet options
3. Under Browsing History Click on Delete
4. When the Delete Browsing History Dialogue
box opens, Click on Delete Files
5. When that finishes, Click on Delete Cookies
6. When that finishes, click Close
Netscape 7.2
1. Open Netscape
2. click on Edit > Preferences
3. In the white box on the left side of the
page, Click on the arrow pointing to the right, in front of Privacy &
Security
4. Click on Cookies
5. On the left side of the page, Click on
Cookie Manager
6. Click on the Stored Cookies tab
7. Then click on Remove All Cookies
8. Click OK in the conformation box that opens
9. Click Close to Close Cookie Manager
10. In the white box to the left, Scroll down
to Advanced
11. Click on the Arrow in front of Advanced
to expand it
12. Click on Cache
13. On the left side of the screen, Click
on Clear Cache
14. Click on OK at the bottom to close Preferences
Manual Deletion:
* XP and 2000 = C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files
* Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows NT or Windows
95 = C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\ OR C:\Windows\Profiles\<username>\Temporary
Internet Files\
*Windows Vista = C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary
Internet Files\ OR C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary
Internet Files\Low |