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Hi

Does anyone know a site where I can find stats of how many ppl disable (or rather not enable) cookies

I can find the stats for users, resolution, JS etc but not cookies

Thanks

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  • 3 weeks later...
Heh.. people that disable cookies are funny.

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How so ? My cookies are disabled.. doesn't stop me from haivng exceptions for sites I want cookies to work on. Like Neowin.

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How so ? My cookies are disabled.. doesn't stop me from haivng exceptions for sites I want cookies to work on. Like Neowin.

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What purpose does it serve? Why would you disable cookies?

I should apologize actually. I can understand if you are using a public terminal or maybe a family computer with only 1 account (for some odd reason).

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What purpose does it serve?  Why would you disable cookies?

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I'd like to know this too...

a stupid friend of mine thinks he's cool cause he disabled them :huh:

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I can think of many reasons to disable cookies. However none are for being "cool".

1. Cookies can and do cause conflicts sometimes on some sites. I have had to delete my cookies many times to get a site to work correct, in the past. I think some people was having login issues here at neowin because of this ( never had any login issues here at neowin, knock on wood).

2. Another is tracking cookies. I know some think it's stupid or paranoid to worrying about them. But if they are no big deal why does all the spyware software also detect tracking cookies?

3.Then there is the not having unnecessarily wasted space. I like keeping things neat and clean on the hard drive. So if you let any site add cookies.. you wind up with millions of them. Yea I know you can remove them.. but you either have to remove one at a time or remove them all. Which includes logins, so you have to redo all the cookies you wanted to keep. I don't like those options.

And just because I want to.. the best reason of all. Not being smart either. Just a fact. Why is it that people are funny if they don't agree with you or do things different? Even if it's unnecessary or something you hate. Each to their own, right?

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1. Cookies can and do cause conflicts sometimes on some sites. I have had to delete my cookies many times to get a site to work correct, in the past. I think some people was having login issues here at neowin because of this ( never had any login issues here at neowin, knock on wood).
Sounds like a bug. Cookies are domain specific, and the domain should handle its cookies. Don't blame the cookies for the sites bad code
2. Another is tracking cookies. I know some think it's stupid or paranoid to worrying about them. But if they are no big deal why does all the spyware software also detect tracking cookies?
They cannot be used alone unless there is a bug in the browser that lets you read them. However, they CAN be used in conjunction with spyware running on the system to "track". Cookies alone are not the issue.
3.Then there is the not having unnecessarily wasted space. I like keeping things neat and clean on the hard drive. So if you let any site add cookies.. you wind up with millions of them. Yea I know you can remove them.. but you either have to remove one at a time or remove them all. Which includes logins, so you have to redo all the cookies you wanted to keep. I don't like those options.
But they are all in one directory, and even 1 thousand of them means nothing. Do you completely disable cache too??

I don't care if you do disable them, I just think it's funny. I never called you an idiot for doing it, or told you it's stupid. It's just funny because people are too paranoid about cookies in my eyes.

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Perhaps you need to look into this a bit more. May I suggest researching, cross site scripting and third party cookies?

Most internet sites which carry advertising banners don't keep the graphics files of the ads locally; instead they sell the space to an online advertiser. When you request a page from the server, it in turn links to the advertiser's server -- transmitting to it your cookie if you already have one -- and retrieves the appropriate ad along with a new cookie to send to your computer.

This is really bad on single account computers shared by multiple persons. Your children could be subjected to adult ads because you couldn't stay off the nudie sites.

Now by no means will the cookie follow your every move. A new profile would be created if you:

use a different browser

use a different computer

use another account on the same computer

delete the cookie(s) currently residing on your computer

This profiling is not limited to indivduals. Entire sites are profiled as well. If a profile determines that a majority of visitors to, say, NeoWin, are also known to visit [insert adult website(s) here], ads could be geared toward this majority. Users who do not fall into this category would still be bombarded by Britney Spears Fakes Nudies ads. Those who administer the site can and usually do choose to limit the content of ads which appear on their site. Computing related sites may only want computing and technology related ads.

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Oh trust me, I understand the issue with cookies and Cross Site Scripting (see http://www.pointblanksecurity.com/xss/xss2.php which I designed, and am helping write a white paper on XSS).

But the problem does not lie with the cookies. The problem lies with poor security.

Yes, there ARE cases where people should disable cookies. But cookies alone are not the threat.

Another thing. On another forum long ago, to demonstrate that they should NOT enable HTML on any of the forums (even the ones only accessible by elder members), I inserted some javascript to capture the cookie if anyone who viewed the page and transmit it to a remote server. So trust me, I know cookies, XSS, and security in general quite well ;)

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Oh trust me, I understand the issue with cookies and Cross Site Scripting (see http://www.pointblanksecurity.com/xss/xss2.php which I designed, and am helping write a white paper on XSS).

But the problem does not lie with the cookies. The problem lies with poor security.

Yes, there ARE cases where people should disable cookies.  But cookies alone are not the threat.

Another thing.  On another forum long ago, to demonstrate that they should NOT enable HTML on any of the forums (even the ones only accessible by elder members), I inserted some javascript to capture the cookie if anyone who viewed the page and transmit it to a remote server.  So trust me, I know cookies, XSS, and security in general quite well ;)

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OK, so it's not the cookies fault (you say) but cookies are used for bad things. It's not a motorcycles fault if a car pulls out in front of someone causing them to crash, but guess what will happen to them BECAUSE they on a motorcycle. No motorcycles are not bad, but you have to trust people to do the right thing.. and lets face it..that will never happen. So, I don't drive motorcycles (on public roads) and I don't allow cookies (on unknown or untrusted sites) To me it's just being safe. Java isn't bad either.. but I keep it disabled too. Nor is Java script but I keep it disabled too. I turn them on only on trusted sites that has a function I need to use and then I turn them on just long enough to use the function then I turn them back off. It might not be necessary, and it MAY be paranoid. But I have NEVER had a virus. Spyware yes..and had all the tools to remove/prevent them. I started using Firefox..now I don't ever have spyware either. And I do use all the other safe guards too.. firewall, AV software and so forth. But it doesn't hurt to be as safe as you can, thus disabling cookies isn't a bad idea. And again how often do you need cookies on sites you are new to (Visiting for the first or only visited a very few times)?? To answer your question about cache.. I have it set to delete when the browser is shut down. So, I use it but I don't allow it to stay after I close my browser. vcv: on a personal note, this is only my opinions..and nothing personal.

PS: I'm not against motorcycles at all. That was just an example and it is fact what I said. If you are on a bike and in a crash.. you are more likely to be injured then if you was in a WELL BUILT vehicle.

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I understand. I didn't mean to be condescending at all. I just generally laugh because most people don't even understand the reason they are doing it and are just overly paranoid. But you seem to understand, so that's fine. You just like to take more precautions than some others.

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I'm not crazy enough to disable cookies to 100%.

That would force me to relogin on forums all the time, for one thing.

No, in Firefox, I instead keep the setting "ask me every time before setting a cookie" enabled.

When I later wish to login somewhere, before I do that, I check "allow sites to set cookies", login, agree to the cookie and deny all ad cookies it tries to force on me (usually easy to identify with names like ad.blah.com, doubleclick.net, tribalfusion.com and other unrelated server names), and then uncheck it. The nice thing about this is -- next time I go to the same site, I don't need to do any of that, and it'll auto-accept what I accepted and auto-deny what I didn't accept.

Some may not know that if "allow sites to set cookies" is unchecked in Firefox, it still let sites already having set cookies for you to keep working. It does NOT mean that it will start denying 100% of all sites trying to set cookies. So turning it off works great to not be bothered with denying cookies from casual web browsing, but you'll still do it automatically, except for the sites you've accepted cookies for. These will instead automatically keep working.

So after a clean install of Firefox, the more I use the browser and visit sites I regularly visit, the less cookie management do I need to bother with. I think it's the optimal solution, assuming you care about cookies at all.

But they are all in one directory, and even 1 thousand of them means nothing. Do you completely disable cache too??

Cache is useful to speed up web browsing, ad cookies are completely useless to me. Can't see one reason why they should litter my hard drive without the site even trying to ask for permission to store them. It's as much spying on my browsing habits as spyware to me... :(

Edited by Jugalator
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Jugalator: The extension Permit cookies makes this process a whole lot easier. http://gorgias.de/mfe/ Instead of having to enable and then disable cookies you can set that one site enable with one click. Ad cookies come from outside that site (in most cases) so you won't get any of them by allowing the site you want to log into.

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Disabling cookies is a good thing. :yes: I don't do it myself, but cookies are part of the malware problem. There are tons of tracking cookies.

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