A continual increase of the buzz about such software as spyware and viruses has left only few people unaware of the problem of cookie files that sites use for attaining their marketing and advertising objectives. Online users have developed a twofold approach to this matter. Some of them believe that cookie files are a sort of spyware and they break their privacy, but the others view them as an expectable price for some free benefits they can get from sites. However, there are those users, who have not made yet any conclusion as to what cookie files are and how they should be treated by them. Let us take a closer look at the matter and receive some more detailed information.
Cookie files are mostly used by commercial sites. They provide advertisers with useful information on their target customers? online activities and shopping preferences. They also help advertisers evaluate their marketing efforts and make them more efficient. Many search engines use cookie files. They are also applied by such large commercial sites and networks, as Amazon Bookstore, A. T. & T., CDNow, Disney, HotWired and Microsoft. However, the sites that use cookie files are not limited by consumer products or services alone. Many of medical or pharmaceutical sites use them as well. Due to the negative consumers? reaction, the latest trend in the online marketing is to consider the use of cookie files as a poor web design.
Another important issue to consider is what cookie files can and what cannot do. Cookie files help advertiser? sites remember you as their visitor and to avoid presenting you with the same ad messages over and over again. They make advertising more targeted. What cookie files do is they help site owners track your visits to their sites. They write cookie files on your computer and send them back to the server that has created those files. Nevertheless, cookie files are not presently implemented for writing small pieces of code on your PC and giving that server an access to browse your hard drive and see what you have on it. Do not confuse cookie files with spyware. It is not their function to spy on you, though in a way they break your privacy and track your online activities.
If you have decided to get rid of cookie files, one of the easiest ways to find them on your hard drive is to run a Find File program. You type in cookie.txt. and your PC will show you such files, stored on its hard drives. You can view cookie files with the help of any regular word processor. Such files will show you a cookies resource and a cookie code. You can identify a cookies resource, such as Amazon or Infoseek, with the servers or sites you have visited, but there is no way for you to understand what coded parts of cookie files mean. To prevent those files from working, you may delete them from your computer or delete their contents. There are several options for protecting your PC from cookie files being written to it. You may install some useful soft that will turn down all the servers? attempts to install such files or you may tune your web browser to do the same thing. It is only up to you to choose between the total privacy and the freedom of surfing through the Net.