The Steel Guitar Forum

I just ran Ad-Aware and found a data mining cookie from SGF. I presume it's harmless, but why would SGF use a data miner?

The steelguitarforum.com cookie is not used for data mining. It holds your last login time so that the Forum software can do the colored folders correctly.

Thanks,
Pleas close.

Richard wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>
I just ran Ad-Aware and found a data mining cookie</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The maker of Ad-Aware has chosen to place a high priority on finding cookies and calling them "data mining cookies." While some cookies are used for that purpose, or to log the ads they serve you, others are needed so you can log back into your favorite websites, control panels, or webmail accounts. In themselves cookies are harmless. Ad-Aware is making something out of nothing. Most websites deposit a cookie on your hard drive when you visit them. Some are used by website hit counters. Others are used to welcome you back and highlight items you previously viewed.

The most unfortunate part of this is that Ad-Aware does not offer an option to ignore all cookies. You must add the cookies you want to keep to an Ignore List, by checking them then right-clicking, then selecting Ignore Selected Items.

I personally prefer Microsoft AntiSpyware, which presently ignores cookies altogether, but that could change in the future.

Wiz

A friend of mine introduced me to a free program called "The Cookie Jar" several months ago! You program in and approve all the sites you use all the time and that have left cookies on your computer. All cookies that come in from your dailey use and that are not approved by you, will be deleated on your computer re-start,or startup . It keeps your machine clean of all cookies you don't want .

It has worked good for me-Windows XP home. shut my computer down at night so when I start it up the next day, all the cookies that came in that were not approved , are gone!

John

Cookie Jar is found here: http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/programs.asp?Program=Cookie%20Jar

Unfortunately this program hasn't been updated since 2002, and does not locate Mozilla or Firefox cookies at all. However, if you use MSIE as you primary browser the program will work for you.

Another thing, all cookies are initially placed in the Undecided tab. It is up to the user to highlight a cookie, or group of multiple cookies, than Add them to Allowed, or Banned. Undecided cookies are not automatically deleted. Banned cookies are only deleted automatically if you have that option checked, in the settings, and have the program checked to run at startup.

Wiz

.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Garth Highsmith on 06 January 2006 at 08:07 AM.]</p></FONT>

Another example of "good cookie" usage:

The web program I work on is Avery^® Print. Sometimes a user's printer requires a small offset to get the labels to line up in their printer. We store that offset in a cookie on the user's system, so that they don't have to repeat the printer calibration process every time they visit the site.

The knee-jerk "cookies are evil" mentality ignores the valid uses for saving user data on the user's system, instead of on the web server. Any technology can be abused.

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<img align=left src="http://b0b.com/b0bxicon.gif" border="0"><small> Bobby Lee</small>
-b0b- <small> quasar@b0b.com </small>
System Administrator <span style="text-align: right; font-size: 0.75em; font-variant: small-caps">
My Blog</span><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by b0b on 08 August 2005 at 10:54 AM.]</p></FONT>