Some WLDG Cookies stick around longer than others

A while back I asked if others were having a problem with the auto-login feature of this web site. Apparently, it worked fine for all/most of you; other respondees had worse problems than I, unfortunately. I went on to try various techniques to solve this, including using the Remove cookies set by this forum link, which appears at the bottom of the page.

It turns out, the problem was certainly related to Cookies. However, it was compounded by the fact that the remove cookies feature did not find all of the WLDG cookies on my system. I discovered this by manually stepping through all of the cookies on my system, and finding a number of WLDG cookies. Some were new, others were old, and some had slightly different names, so they were not necessarily all grouped together. After manually deleting all of those cookies, the auto-login feature began working as expected.

Just a helpful hint.

-- Clark

Randy

How does one delete "cookies" from the compter?

Thanks

Randy, in my version of FF -- 2.0.0.9 -- your sentence should read:

In FireFox, you would go to Tools->Options ... >Privacy and look at the various options such as "Clear now", "Show cookies" (you can use this to delete them individually).

Regards, Bob

Windows (XP anyway) has a useful menu under "Control Panel" called Internet Properties, most windows versions have some form of this. E.g.,

Start -> Control Panel -> Internet Properties -> General.

There you find buttons to delete cookies and delete temporary Internet files (under "Delete Files").

It's prudent to "toss your cookies" and the temporary files often -- like whenever you finish an Internet session -- unless you have a very specific reason to want to keep them around. (Much junk, adware, malware, and performance degradation that I find on random Windows installations would be eliminated if their users just did this easy routine cleaning.)

But don't you have to re-log in to all of your sites, then?
I find that a major PITA.

Nevertheless, I'm going to do it, today. It's long overdue.

We don't like to delete all cookies because some will require lengthy reregisistering. To manually edit/delete cookies with XP you click on start, then My Computer, then Local disk (C), then Documents & Settings. At this point it gives you a menu of users. Click of each until you get a menu that includes cookies. Open cookies and drag those you don't want to the Recycle Bin.

We do this every couple of days. Some cookies (e.g. "doubleclick") are very susceptible to infections and shouldn't be left around.

Individual preferences and site demands vary of course. For me, the sole cost of tossing all cookies is needing a password on the next login to a site with membership (like this site). The site hasn't forgotten me, my computer has just forgotten the site. Other effects are transparent and automatic (e.g., the reloading of cookies with quick-reference information to speed drawing of Web pages). I find this less trouble than the effects of occasional "rotten" cookies. But then I also find it saves time in the long run to proactively "copy" any text I type (like this text) rather than to reconstitute it from memory when occasionally the connection is lost and the typed text with it.

A number of years ago, I remember acquiring an inexpensive SW tool called Internet Cleanup (or something like that). It would automatically purge Cookies and Temporary Internet files from our home computer. It was handy in that you could configure it to match your needs. In particular, you could tell it when to purge and to exempt specific Cookies from being purged.

I have to see if that SW is still laying around somewhere, or if we managed to lose it during system upgrades over the years.

-- Clark