Expired Cookies Cleaner is a free portable application for the Windows operating system that can remove the traces of expired cookies effectively. It will automatically scan the computer system and delete expired cookies from it. The software will also optimize the files that store cookies on the system. These files usually contain expired and valid cookies. The expired cookie remover will delete the expired cookies and optimize the storage space of the remaining cookies.

The software will list every expired cookie that it found in a list. It will furthermore display statistics about the amounts of the files and cookies that were found on the computer system, the number of cookies that have been removed, the number of optimized files plus the time it took to complete the process.

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One way to do that would be to block cookies of those Internet advertising networks. It also works to clear cookies after every session but there is a better way. Many Internet advertising networks are providing ways to opt-out of behavioral targeting by setting so called opt-out cookies on the user’s computer system.

If an opt-out cookie is present they will not track and analyze the user by placing additional cookies on his computer system. The major problem here is that there are hundreds of online advertising companies that use behavioral targeting in some of their advertising campaigns.

A user following that manual approach would have to locate the website of the Internet advertising network and there the page where the opt-out cookie could be set. This would take days and the chance would be high that a lot of networks would be missed.

Privacy Choice was mentioned in yesterday’s post about Google’s new behavioral ads. The website provides the means to opt-out of behavioral targeting of dozens of ad networks including major ones like Google AdSense, DoubleClick, Yahoo! and AOL.

A click on the opt-out button on the main page of Privacy Choice will set all opt-out cookies that are currently provided by the service. This may take up to a minute as several connections to the various internet advertising agencies are established to set the cookie.

The only thing that you need to be aware of is that the opt-out cookie is a normal web browser cookie that will get deleted if you clear all of your cookies. You would need to set the opt-out cookie again after clearing the cookies of the web browser.

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Usually, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is very critical of big corporations who intrude on people’s privacy, but their criticism was not very harsh. Why? Because Google has developed a web browser plug-in that permits users to opt-out of this scheme.

The plug-in is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox and modifications to browser preferences in Chrome and Safari also allow people to opt-out. Google also maintains an ‘Ad Preferences Manager‘ which allows this tracking cookie to be disabled until the next time cookies are wiped.

There are several reasons to disable these cookies. Firstly, you may not entrust Google with your details. Secondly, adverts based on past browsing may be displayed to other users of the computer… not perfect if, for example, you were buying a present for a family member and they are suddenly swarmed with advertisements about it!

Most tracking cookies can be disabled if you modify browser settings. In Firefox, for example, in Preferences>Privacy, you can refuse to ‘accept third party cookies’.

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Sweeper is a KDE utility included with KDE 4.2, is released under the GPL, and is currently enjoying version 1.2. Sweeper is very simple to use, does one thing and does it well.  Simplicity is certainly one of the best features in Sweeper. You start it up, select what you want to clean, and press the Clean up button. Sweeper is so simple to use, there is no documentation. So why am I writing about Sweeper? Because no one knows about this handy utility.

Starting and Using Sweeper

You can find Sweeper in the Accessories menu under the GNOME desktop. In KDE 4.x you can do a search for Sweeper (in the main menu search) and it will show up. Finding the Sweeper entry can be rough in KDE 4.x. If you click on the Main menu click on the Applications tab and then click on the Utilities entry and then click on the More Applications entry. Under the More Applications entry you will see System Cleaner menu entry, click on that to open Sweeper.

Sweeper Window

The image to the left is the only window for the Sweeper application. There is no window for settings, options, or preferences. This one window is where all the action takes place.

Once you open up the window you will see two panes. The top pane is where you select the various types of data you can clean up. The lower pane is the information pane. As data is cleaned you will see a message in the bottom window indicating the data has been cleaned up.

The buttons along the bottom are pretty obvious. The left-most button selects all data types, the middle button selects none of the data types, and the right-most button does the clean up job.

Once you clean up your system and you close Sweeper, the next time you open the application all data types will be, once again, selected. Having all data types selected is the default action and can not be changed. You can also not add data types to the applications. This is truly a “what you see is what you get” utility.

Final Thoughts

Sweeper is a great way to keep your Linux system clean and free of the tracks you often do not want to leave behind. Instead of having to manage numerous tools for this job, why not employ one single tool to do the trick for all of those cookies, files, and histories you do not want to leave around.

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The blacklist would contain websites that should not be allowed to place cookies on the user’s system. A die hard approach would be to start every new site in the blacklist and move it to either the temporarily allowed sites or the whitelist when needed.

The temporary list would contain sites that would require cookies to work properly but that are not trusted enough – or where it is not necessary – to be placed in the whitelist.

Firefox:

If you look at the cookie management features in a blank version of Firefox – that is one without extensions – you notice that it already comes with a few features that are required. The basic settings are to accept cookies / third partie cookies and keep them until they either expire (that would be set by the webmaster of the website), you close Firefox or to ask the user how he would like to handle the cookies.

There is also an option to add exceptions. Exceptions handle cookies from websites that are entered by the user this way. Cookies of those websites can either be allowed, blocked or temporarily allowed which would exactly be what we have been looking for.

Now while this might be everything needed it is highly uncomfortable to work with. Permit Cookies is a Firefox add-on that makes the whole process easier.

Opera:

Cookie management in Opera does not come with an option to whitelist or blacklist websites. Users can accept cookies / third party cookies and also make the browser to disallow all cookies. There is an option to delete new cookies when exiting Opera and an option to ask the user whenever a new cookie is encountered.

The ability to manage cookies is different to that of Firefox. Opera users can manipulate cookie contents and delete already existing cookies. There is however no way to add exceptions.

Opera’s Site Preferences make it possible to configure cookies per website visited.

This makes it possible to accept or block cookies for specific websites.

Google Chrome:

Google Chrome’s cookie management consists of one pulldown menu with three options. Users can either allow all cookies, restrict third party cookies or block all cookies. It is possible to take a look a the cookies with the option to search and remove selected ones or all of them.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 comes with sufficient cookie management. Users can use a slider to pick on of six available cookie management options. This ranges from accepting all cookies to blocking them all. In between are restrictions for some first and third party cookies.

Internet Explorer 7 makes use of a whitelist and blacklist to permanently allow or block cookies of specified websites. It’s also the only browser with options to override automatic cookie handling to configure first-party and third-party cookies in detail. At least in the main menu that is.

Conclusion:

Firefox and Internet Explorer provide the most options for their users to handle cookies. Everything that is not directly available in Firefox can be added with some extensions. Opera is the only browser that allows cookie manipulation but fails to provide a blacklist and whitelist. Google Chrome on the other hand offers a miserable cookie management.

Opera is the web browser with the most extensive options for managing cookies. It is the only browser that makes it possible to manipulate cookies. Firefox users can add this option by installing add-ons for the browser. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer come with enough options to manage cookies including the possibility to whitelist or blacklist sites.

Google Chrome on the other hand is the only browser that has an inferior cookie management with no options to add websites to a whitelist or blacklist.

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The maximum cookies per domain setting usually has impacts on large websites that store lots of cookies on the computer. Remember that domain means that cookies saved from the main domain name but also from all subdomains count towards the limit.

The second limit is not that much of a problem nowadays anymore. Firefox had a hard coded 300 cookie limit back in 2004 which caused some serious problems but most browsers support much more than that so that it’s unlikely that users will reach the limit.

Per Domain Cookie Limit:

Here is a test script to test your browser:

Firefox 2: 50 (can bet set between 0 and 65535 in network. cookie. maxPerHost)
Firefox 3: 50 (can bet set between 0 and 65535 in network. cookie. maxPerHost)
Internet Explorer 7: 50 (after applying a patch from Microsoft)
Opera 9: 30
Safari: No Limit(!)

Maximum Cookie Limit:

Firefox 2: 1000 (can bet set between 0 and 65535 in network. cookie. maxNumber)
Firefox 3: 1000 (can bet set between 0 and 65535 in network. cookie. maxNumber)
Internet Explorer: unknown
Opera: unknown

I’d say that I’m a heavy Internet user but I never scratched those limits. Did you experience problems with cookie limits before?

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The first applications are beneficial and most of the time necessary to use all of the functions of a website. Blocking cookies on a website that is storing session information in them will have the result that the user is asked for authentication whenever he loads a new page on the server.

Tracking cookies on the other hand do not benefit the user at all unless you would say that targeted advertisement is beneficial. It does not really make sense to enable cookies for all websites, especially those that use them to track the user. It’s more of a privacy issue but one that many users take serious.

Most browsers either come with build in features to enable cookies on a per site basis or provide extensions and add-ons that make it easy to enable cookies only on websites where cookies are necessary for the website to function properly.Firefox users can for instance use the excellent CS Lite Cookie Manager.

Internet Explorer comes with some settings in the Internet Options that can manage cookies effectively has a few options as well but not as man as Internet Explorer.

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This firefox extension will list all cookies currently saved in firefox and give you details once you select a cookie. The list itself will keep you informed about the website that created the cookie and the name of the cookie. There is additional information on this main screen like the content of the cookie, which is most likely encrypted, or the expiration date of the cookie.

The edit menu displays all the information already listed in the main window and gives you the option to alter the saved values. You could make cookies expire early for instance or try advanced methods ot altering cookies that might get you into restricted areas of the website that you are visiting.

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A cookie is the way that a web site can remember the user name and password of a person so they will not have to log in each time they visit the site. This is a matter of ease of operation and some people do enjoy this feature in many cases because they do not have to spend so much time typing in the information. The cookie will also tell the site the areas that you visited and the different things that you have done.

So in essence it is the method that the site will use to track its members and gain more insight into their activities. This is where a lot of people begin to have a problem with the cookie. It is important to note that in most cases the cookie is a completely harmless file that will not create any problems for you. However, this is not always the case. There is always the chance that the cookie that a site threw onto your system could be used to track all of the activity on the computer for the purpose of less than moral activities.

Many times the information will be used for the purpose of sending spam mail based on the information that you look at. This is sometimes referred to as a “Tracking Cookie� and is something that will be picked up by a lot of the spyware removal programs that are currently in use. Cookies are also not so good for those that share a computer. Since the cookie will save the user name and many times the password for a site, this would enable others that log on to the computer to view the personal and private information on the sites that you have listed. This is very dangerous when you consider the threat of identity theft and also the fact that many of these sites may contain information on your finances as well.

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