'Last Hour'

"Last hour" has gone funny again. Clicking on it takes me to "search results"

Jacey I suspect you could dump the lot and any that matter would be downloaded again.

Famous last words.

Now that was a bad idea ...I've pages of stuff to read on what one might/could/should do with cookies!! [headache] emoticon

Got the sunshine back, I see!

Enjoy your shopping, elegran

Thanx Elegran

Enjoy the rest of your day ...think I might investigate to see what cookies are lurking on my computer

Off now to catch bus to the Gyle so don't ask me any more difficult questions.

TTFN

I don't know anything about Facebook but I would not be surprised.

elegran is that why I have mumsnet entries on my Facebook page. I wondered where they came from!

List of cookies which my AVG anti-virus (free and very good) regularly destroys as "potentailly dangerous tracking cookies" - Revsci, yieldmanager, Serving-sys, Atdmt.

Many others gather statistics on site viewing (not personalised so not dangerous but not useful either) Doubleclick is one that I remember, appearing frequently, there are many more but I have deleted them recently so do not have them to quote. Will post again after the computer has been on for a while and they have silted up again.

Yes they will slow it down no end. If you can find them (look in the help for your browser) you can go through them and delete at least some.

Anything that sounds like an ad analyser for a start.
Anything with a strange incomprehensible combination of letters.
Anything clearly from a site you know you visited once ages ago.
If they have their expiry date listed and it is past, then obviously they can't possibly be useful.

Keep anything from your bank, from Gransnet or anywhere else that you have to log into, at least until you are sure you don't need it.

If you even halve the list, you have done something to clear the decks.

Ooh, I don't like the sound of 'swarms of cookies'.....[shock horror emoticon!]

Thanks for the info Elegran ...but do they slow down the speed of my computer if I've got swarms of them hiding in the system?? [shock]

How do I know which to keep and which to swot??? [hmm]

You don't need to download them, Jacey they download themselves.

To be fair, they are useful when you are on the site as they facilitate the way the data goes back and forward from site to you to site (don't ask the technical details, because I am a little shaky on that. I just know that the computer their end has to know that you have received one chunk before it can send you the next) but of course all the webmasters are onto the bandwagon and drop several cookies onto you whether they are needed or not. A lot of them are from associated advertising sites which report back statistics on site usage.

They have a "sell-by date " when they expire, but some of these dates are years ahead - not necessary! Mostly, they are only needed for that session on the net.

I just checked, I did have cookies from Gransnet, Mumsnet and mumsnet ads so you probably do too.

Is this why I keep getting a message when I first log into my computer about disabling cookies and so speed up my downlaods?? [confused]

I've never done anything about it ... as never downloaded any cookies ...now seems I've got them without knowing [blush] [idiot] emoticon

If you can view your cookies, you will probably find hundreds of them, from sites you never knew existed.

Gransnet probably already had one on your computer but this legislation had stirred everything up.

Don't try Anagram............ (not worth the trouble [grin])

Pass

But GN has always remembered my login details - how did they do that without cookies? [extremely confused emoticon!]

Mine's a white chocolate chip cookie please.

If you use Firefox, you can set your policy on cookies by going to "Options" on the menu bar, then to "History" and then in the "Firefox will....." bit, choose what you want to happen about cookies. I can't help you with IE, but it will have some way of being in charge.

Third party cookies (one of the choices) are cookies that come, not from the site you are looking at, but from an associated site.

What I do is to accept cookies for a day, except for sites that I have specified and know that I want to have logging me in or sending me adverts.

I think they were called cookies because they were little unexpected "gifts"

snap, kitty

Cookies are little messages that some sites leave on your computer when you view pages. They have stuff in them which lets the site recognise you when you return another day. In GNs case they must be references to your log-in details, because sites do not keep all that log-in stuff themselves (not enough space for everyone's details)

You can set your browser to either accept all cookies, only keep them for a day, accept none, or ask you each time whether to keep each one. And you can make exceptions for certain sites if you get fed up being asked every time you visit a new site.