Technology today can be used to track users across domains. A study in 2009 saw Google on 92 of the top 100 sites followed by DoubleClick with 70 presences (which are now also Google owned) and Microsoft’s Atlas with 60 occurrences.

Cookies, regular or Flash, are usually used to track users. These cookies can be accessed on all domains a company script is loaded on, which in the case of Google would mean the ability to track user movement on 92 of the top 100 domains in the world. While this percentage is surely going down a bit if the sample size increases, it is still common to be tracked across many web properties.

There are options available to not be tracked online. This includes clearing all cookies after or even during a browsing session, using private browsing modes, or installing extensions like the excellent NoScript to block third party scripts from running on a site.

TrackerBlock, available for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome offers another option. The program can make sure that you are not tracked across the web. It does so in a number of ways:

• Do Not Track Me Header – Whenever you make a request to a website, you submit a signal that tells the website that you do not want your activities tracked. Websites and companies are not obligated though. Option to delete Flash cookies.
• Opt-Out Cookies – So called opt-out cookies tell websites, services and agencies that the user does not want to be tracked. This turns off data collection and tracking off more than one hundred companies.
• Tracker Blocking – Blocks advertising agencies and companies from reading or writing cookies on your system. The extension does that for more than 550 different companies.
• HTML5 Storage – Visualizes which companies are using HTML5 to store data on your system, with options to delete the data manually.

Click on an image to see how the settings and preferences look like in the Firefox web browser.

The program combines several anti-tracking options in one interface. Especially useful is the ability to write the opt-out cookies on the system, to clear Flash and HTML5 data storage that are often used for tracking, and to block advertising companies from reading or writing cookies on the system.

TrackerBlock can best be installed at the Privacy Choice website, as it is available there for all supported browsers. It is not really clear if the extension is available for other browsers as well. It is definitely available for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Expired cookies are not only useless to the site though. Internet users cannot use the cookies as well anymore and they may even leak privacy related information to third parties should they get access to the computer.

It makes therefor sense to delete expired cookies on the computer. And while that is possible in most web browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer does not seem to be doing it.

The free portable software Expired Cookies Cleaner comes to the rescue of Internet Explorer users who want to get rid of out of date cookies on their system. All it takes is to run the application, click the Process button and wait until the application has processed all of the cookies that Internet Explorer has stored on the system.

The program displays all cleaned cookies in a log in the application window. A summary is displayed in the end that lists information about the overall cookie count on the system and the number of expired cookies.

The program deletes expired cookies from the system or individual cookie files if more than one cookie is saved in a file. It happens that only some of the cookies stored in the file are expired while others are still valid. The program removes the expired cookie information from the file and keeps the remaining cookie information on the system.

You can run the software without graphical user interface from the command line. This can be handy if you want to run the program on a regular basis, for instance as part of a batch file.

The command C:\>ExpiredCookiesCleaner.exe a FileName runs the program and saves the output in filename. You can replace the file name parameter with nul if you do not want a log file written.

Expired Cookies Cleaner is compatible with all version of the Microsoft Windows system and all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Interested users can download the tiny portable program from the developer website. (via)

Google Chrome users can clear all browsing data, which includes cookies but also other data like the browsing and download history, by clicking on the wrench icon in the toolbar and selecting Tools > Clear Browsing Data from the menu that pops up.

It is alternatively possible to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Del for the same effect. A window is displayed where the data can be cleared.

Please note that there is a link to the Adobe Flash Player storage settings. If you click on that link you will be taken to Adobe’s Website Storage Settings panel where you can delete all or select Flash cookies.

If you go back to the Chrome browser you may have noticed that the clear browsing data window does not offer to clear individual files. Sometimes you may want to delete a specific cookie or a set of cookies only. This can be handy for web developers testing a new site feature, users who accidentally visited a site and want to delete its traces or users who want to clear personalized data.

The easiest way to clear individual cookies in Google Chrome is to enter chrome://settings/cookies into the address bar. This opens the cookies and other data listing in the browser. All stored cookies are displayed here. It is possible to remove all cookies or search for individual cookies.

A click on a site displays all cookies stored by that site on the computer. It takes another click to display detailed information about the cookie and the Remove button. If you click on Remove the selected cookie will be deleted from the system.

And that’s how you delete standard and Flash cookies in the Chrome web browser individually.

Sometimes though you may want to see which cookies are written to the system in realtime. While you could configure your browser to display warnings about each cookie that is about to be written, it is often not the most comfortable thing to do considering that it breaks the workflow big time.

The new Nirsoft application WebCookiesSniffer on the other hand deals with cookies without interrupting the browsing experience. The program requires the free software WinPcap Capture Driver or Microsoft’s Network Monitor Driver to capture cookies in realtime. You can alternatively try the Raw Socket method which is however less reliable than the other two options.

When you first start the program you are asked to pick a capture method and network adapter. The program will then pick up all new cookies that are created on the system. The program itself is browser independent which means that it will display cookies from all web browsers installed on the system.

Each cookie is displayed with its host name, request path, length, count and string. When you select a cookie all of its values are displayed in the lower half of the screen. There are no options to edit or delete which is unfortunate. As is that you cannot link a cookie to the website that triggered its creation.

The portable software comes with the usual assortment of exporting options. You can create HTML reports or save selected cookies as text, xml or csv files.

The ability to edit or delete cookies would come in handy. As would an option to display the website that triggered the cookies creation. Finally, an option to filter by browser would be handy as well.

Windows users can download the latest version of WebCookiesSniffer from the official Nirsoft project website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Tracking cookies that record private information are the ones that most people tend to want to block. Choose and customize browsers to block the risky cookies and allow the ones that make browser use more efficient. White lists can be used to specify sites to accept desired cookies for IE versions and Firefox.

This is a different approach to cookie control and is not for the inexperienced user. For those willing to go through the process, this is a good method to gain control over cookies.
The start of this process is to whitelist sites. Starting with Internet Explorer, click Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > Sites. You then get the Per Site Privacy Actions menu:

Here begins manual entry of each site that you want to whitelist . You can toggle the settings for first and third-party cookies to make this easier, but you will lose customized specifications. To toggle the cookie settings, click Tools > Internet Options > Privacy. Select Settings and click OK.

IE doesn’t offer many options. Consider taking the time to manually whitelist and save some future troubles.
By specifying the sites to allow on the whitelist, you bypass the pre-set options that will certainly allow cookies that are undesired. Advanced Privacy Settings for IE8 and IE9 are limited and you lose accurate control by taking a shortcut.

Firefox offers better options. For those who do not wish to use Firefox, just stick to manual whitelisting with Internet Explorer. The overrides are limited at best. Give Firefox a shot and see what you can do. If it is not what you want, uninstall and leave it alone. Many people find IE a great browser, but some users might find Firefox more adaptable, faster and more user friendly.

Moving on to Firefox, you can find broad user options that allow for a clean customization.

Open Firefox and click on Tools > Options > Privacy. In the Privacy menu, find the “Firefox will…” option:

As seen here, uncheck “Accept third-party cookies and toggle the “Keep until” option to “ask me every time.” This option is beautifully streamlined compared to Internet Explorer. All you need to do from this time forward is work with the prompts when first-party cookies are attempted. Normally, these would be automatically set in the browser cache. With the above settings, you are prompted to allow or block the cookies. It might take a few days to customize or allow and block settings for given cookies, but Firefox remembers and continues to offer prompts when new first-party cookie attempt to present themselves. Visit the sites used most often and weed through the cookies. Thereafter, you are in complete control.

Whether using Internet Explorer or Firefox, cookie customization is a useful tool. In the end, it spares hassles and gives customized browsing without the annoyance of tracking cookies that can steal private data. Or you could manually clear your cookies each day, but that still allows time for sensitive data to be extrapolated. And besides, who remembers to do that on a daily basis.

Firefox users who do not want to work with prompts can check out the guide Configure Firefox To Delete All Cookies On Exit But Select Ones to work around that by deleting all but selected cookies on browser exit automatically.

Applications like CCleaner on the other hand speed up the process significantly, especially if more than one browser is installed and used on the computer system. Another program with a very similar functionality is Browser Cleaner.

Browser Cleaner has been primarily designed to delete the Internet history of web browsers that are installed or in use on the system. The portable software program supports popular web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.

The Options button next to each browser’s name opens a detailed configuration menu in which specific files or items can be selected for deletion. This includes the browser’s cache, history, cookies or download history.

Everything is selected by default which means that a click on Clean Now will delete the complete Internet history of all supported web browsers.

Browser Cleaner offers more than just the deletion of Internet files and traces. It supports deleting the history of Instant Messaging software programs and file sharing programs as well. Supported are more than ten programs in each category, from file sharing programs such as emule, iMesh or uTorrent to instant messaging programs like AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk.

That’s still not the end of it. The tabs Windows Items and Applications lead to additional locations and information that you can delete with the program.

Windows Items list a few dozen Windows locations, from the temporary files folder over log files to Windows Live Messenger Cache and History.

The Applications tab lists popular third party applications from companies like Adobe, Macromedia or AVG.

The selections are not as complete as in CCleaner, but they come very close. It is however missing some of the customization options of CCleaner.

Browser Cleaner can be handy for users who want to delete their computer’s Internet history with minimal effort. It takes just two clicks to do that with the application. The latest version of the program, compatible with all recent versions of the Windows operating system, is available for download at the developer website.

Cookies are small files that can be placed on your computer when you visit a website. They often serve as identifiers and sometimes to store custom parameters in. Cookies are for instance used to store session information after you log in to a website. Without the cookie set, you would need to log in again on every new page that you open on that website. There are other means to keep track of those information, but cookies are the most common form and used by the majority of Internet sites.

Cookies can also store parameters. When you comment on a blog you sometimes see an option to save the user information (your name, email and website). These information are then stored in a cookie as well.

Not all cookies are helpful on the other hand. Tracking cookies are used to follow your movement on the web. Advertisers use these information to create a user profile to show you relevant advertising. If you visit lots of car websites you may see more car related ads on websites.

Sometimes you may need to delete cookies on a computer. You may have used a public computer and want to make sure that all your session data stored in cookies is deleted.

Delete Cookies

All web browsers offer the means to delete cookies right in the browser.

Internet Explorer

To clear cookies in Internet Explorer do the following: Start the web browser and click on Tools > Safety > Delete Browsing History.

Make sure Cookies is selected. A click on Delete removes all Internet Explorer cookies from the system. Sometimes you may want to delete specific cookies only. To do this click on Tools > Internet Options.

Locate the Settings button under Browsing History in the General tab. Click the View files button there.

This opens the temporary Internet files in Windows Explorer. My suggestion would be to change the folder view mode to details and sort the files by name or Internet address.

You can now delete cookies selectively in Windows Explorer.

Mozilla Firefox

Click on Tools > Clear Recent History or press Ctlr-Shift-Del to open the configuration window. Here you can clear all cookies stored in the Firefox web browser. Make sure to select everything from the time range pull down to delete all cookies.

Click Tools > Options > Privacy if you want to delete only some cookies in the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Select Show Cookies from the interface. This opens a list of all cookies that are currently stored in the web browser.

Simply select a cookie from the listing and click the remove cookie button afterwards to delete that cookie from the browser.

Google Chrome

Click on Wrench > Tools > Clear Browsing Data to delete cookies in Google Chrome.

Google Chrome is currently the only browser that links directly to Adobe Flash Player storage settings which makes it easier to delete Flash cookies as well.

The delete some cookies in Google Chrome open chrome://settings/content in the address bar and select the All cookies and site data button.

All cookies stored in Google Chrome are listed on that page. Just click on a cookie and then on the little x on the right side to delete that cookie.

Opera

Opera users need to click on Menu > Settings > Delete Private Data to delete cookies. They can delete all cookies under that menu, or click on the Manage Cookies button to see a list of all stored cookies on the system, and options to delete them selectively.

Third party programs to delete cookies

You can use third party programs to delete cookies. They offer several benefits, especially for users who work with multiple web browsers as it allows them to delete cookies from all web browsers in one go.

CCleaner is such a program. It is freely available, and even comes with a filter list to keep some cookies on the system during deletion (I have recently shown how to do that in Firefox as well, see Configure Firefox To Delete All Cookies On Exit But Select Ones for a detailed guide on the topic.

One of the best options therefor is to use third party tools like CCleaner to clean data left by the web browser on the computer system.

The Firefox and Google Chrome add-on Click&Clean offers an alternative to third party tools by providing those features directly in the supported web browser.

The Google Chrome extension offers deeper configuration options than the Firefox add-on, the end result on the other hand can be the same (depending on the configuration).

Firefox Click&Clean Add-on

The options are divided into three groups. Clear private data will delete the web browsing data either directly when triggered manually or on browser exit. An external application can be integrated into the add-on so that it will be run as well. The advanced options finally allow the user to delete Flash Cookies from the system.

Google Chrome Click&Clean Extensions

The Chrome extension looks completely different and offers customization that the Firefox add-on does not offer.

A click on the items in the left sidebar opens in depth configuration options that include all clear browsing data options of the browser plus more. It is for instance possible to remove Flash cookies, Silverlight cookies, the Java cache, Google Gears data, extension local storage, cookies and SQL databases. There are even options to delete the recycle bin and temporary files of the operating system.

It is furthermore possible to configure when and how data is cleared with options to delete data manually or automatically. The option to launch an external application with arguments is available as well in Chrome.

That still is not everything that the Google Chrome extension has to offer. A click on the extension’s icon in the Chrome toolbar opens a menu with quick access to clearing the browsing data and new features like accessing the browser’s video history, memory usage and third party options like launching the system’s defragmenter or disk cleanup.

The Chrome extensions offers more than the Firefox add-on does. Both add-ons are available from the developer website and the official extension galleries on Mozilla.com and Google.com

• IE9 will offer consumers a new opt-in mechanism (“Tracking Protection”) to identify and block many forms of undesired tracking.
• “Tracking Protection Lists” will enable consumers to control what third-party site content can track them when they’re online.

According to this information, Tracking Protection allows IE9 users to manage some forms of tracking on the Internet. Tracking Protection allows them to maintain a list of domains and sites that may track them while they are online, while the remaining sites are blocked from doing so.

The feature is designed as a opt-in which means that users have to activate it to use it. This could mean that the majority of Internet Explorer users will be unaware of that option.

The video suggests that users need to select tracking scripts or images on a website to block them with Tracking Protection in Internet Explorer 9. The good news is that these blocked contents stay blocked over sessions and on other domains as well. Information are added to a so called Tracking Protection List which “contains web addresses (like msdn.com) that the browser will visit (or “call”) only if the consumer visits them directly by clicking on a link or typing their address”. This means that connections to resources in the list are blocked if they are made from other web pages which is usually the case for third party cookies for instance.

It seems as if lists could be offered by websites, and that IE9 will update those lists once per week. I’m not entirely sure if this is a way for websites to offer their users a way to opt out of tracking mechanisms on their website, of if those lists can also be global lists to include hundreds or thousands of tracking mechanisms.

The IE blog offers a fairly large introduction of the Tracking Protection feature which interested users can access for additional information about the feature.

Evercookie takes this a step further by dropping as many cookies on the user’s system as possible. In particular, the Javascript API will make use of the following storage mechanisms if supported by the web browser.

• Standard HTTP Cookies
• Local Shared Objects (Flash Cookies)
• Silverlight Isolated Storage
• Storing cookies in RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached
• PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out
• Storing cookies in Web History
• Storing cookies in HTTP ETags
• Storing cookies in Web cache
• window.name caching
• Internet Explorer userData storage
• HTML5 Session Storage
• HTML5 Local Storage
• HTML5 Global Storage
• HTML5 Database Storage via SQLite

Why would someone want to drop data into that many locations? Easy: For a far superior user identification. When a site drops a cookie on the user’s system it can identify the user for as long as the cookie is active. If the user deletes the cookie it cannot identify the user anymore. It may use algorithms to calculate probabilities but it usually cannot be sure that this is indeed a user who visited the site in the past.

Evercookies introduce a whole new level of user tracking. The website will be able to track the user, and reproduce deleted cookies, if at least one cookie or data in storage locations is not deleted by the user. And we all know that many users still have not heard about Flash cookies, the second most known form of storing cookies on a user system yet. How will those users cope with the news that there are more than ten additional ways of storing data to track a user?

Samy Kamkar has put up a demonstration page where users can set evercookies manually on their system. The same page contains options to rediscover the cookies. The suggested way of using the demonstration is to set the evercookie, delete cookies in all places known to the user to finally revisit the site to see if the evercookie is still existing on the system. The first rediscover button drops all deleted cookies in their place again, the second button does not do that. It is interesting that this method is able to track a user even if the browser is switched, at least as long as the Flash cookie is not deleted.

The JavaScript source is available on the page as well as a small FAQ. So what can you do to protect your system from this new kind of user tracking? Add-ons like NoScript prevent the creation of several of the cookies, as do Flash blockers (or no Flash at all on the system). Private browsing modes are an option as well.

Vanilla for Google Chrome is a cookies whitelist manager that aids the privacy conscious user in doing that. It basically allows the user to add specific domains to a cookie whitelist. These cookies are then not deleted when the other browsing cookies are deleted.

The recommended usage therefor is to add domains that save important cookies to the whitelist to retain these over browsing sessions, and configure Chrome to automatically delete all (non-whitelisted) cookies on exit. It is possible to clear non-whistelisted cookies manually instead if that is desired. Most users on the other hand may prefer the automatic solution.

This extension requires some initial configuration before it can be used. This means in particular to add all important cookie domains to the whitelist to protect these cookies from deletion.

The extension offers two options to do that. First, it is possible to add domains from the extension’s options. The whitelist supports wildcards, so that *.google.com will include www.google.com, docs.google.com and every other google subdomain. Whitelisting www.google.com for instance would only protect cookies on www.google.com, but not docs.google.com and other subdomains.

The second option is to click on the icon in the Chrome address bar to add an active site to the whitelist.

From there it is possible to add the active domain or the root domain to the whitelist. It is furthermore possible to delete all unprotected cookies from the menu.

Vanilla offers an excellent option for Chrome users to manage their privacy in the browser more efficiently.

The detection of third party cookies by security software does not mean that they pose the same danger as a computer virus, trojan or worm to the user. Tracking cookies are placed on the computer by online advertising companies. These companies track the user’s movement on the Internet for statistical and relevancy reasons.

One of the main purposes of cookies in general is to save temporary data, for instance language preferences or login information. Tracking cookies on the other hand are only created to track a users movement. The movement can still only be tracked if the user visits a website that displays the advertisement scripts of the company that has a cookie stored on the system.

Tracking cookies raise privacy issues, as they allow companies to partially track an Internet user’s movement on the Internet. The detected cookies can be deleted easily in the security software. Some web browsers, like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, offer settings to handle third party cookies. The term third party cookies might confuse some users, but it is actually fairly easy to understand. A first party cookie is placed by the website itself, it would for instance be a first party cookie if Ghacks would place a cookie on your system. A third party cookie is placed by scripts from other services, mostly advertisements that are loaded on the page.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer users can clear all cookies in the web browser by clicking on Tools > Internet Options, and then the Delete button in the General tab. This opens the Delete Browsing History menu. Cookies is one of the items available in that menu. Keep in mind that this will delete all cookies, it may mean that certain site preferences are reset to their default values. It may also mean that a login prompt is displayed on some sites on the next connection.

internet explorer cookies

Cookies will be written again on the next connection. The third party cookie behavior can be configured in the Privacy tab of the Internet Options. The default setting is medium, which blocks some third party cookies but not all of them. Moving that slider to medium high, high or “block all cookies” will reduce or eliminate cookies in the web browser. A better approach, that blocks third party cookies completely, is to click on the Advanced button to open the Advanced Privacy Settings in Internet Explorer.

advanced privacy settings

Activate “Override automatic cookie handling” and change the third party cookie selection to Block. This blocks all third party cookies in Internet Explorer without affecting third party cookies at all.

Opera

Opera users can delete cookies by clicking on the Menu button at the top left of the web browser, and then Settings > Delete Private Data.

opera delete private data

A click on the Manage Cookies button after enabling detailed options in this menu lists all cookies with the option to delete them selectively instead.

Opera offers options to change the default cookie behavior and block tracking cookies. Press Ctrl-F12 to open the Opera Preferences. Switch to the Advanced tab and select cookies from the left sidebar menu.

Change Accept cookies to Accept cookies only from the site I visit to disable third party cookies in Opera.

opera block tracking cookies

Google Chrome

A click on the wrench and the selection of Options opens the Google Chrome Options window. The Under the Bonnet tab contains options to clear the browsing data and set the default cookie behavior.

A click on Clear browsing data opens a new window with the option to delete stored cookies, among other data.

delete cookies google chrome

General cookie behavior can be set in the Content settings menu. Cookies is one of the options in that menu. Locate the checkbox “Block all third-party cookies without exception” to block all tracking cookies from being set on the computer.

google chrome block tracking cookies

Mozilla Firefox

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Del opens the Clear Recent History menu in Firefox. Here it is possible to clear the cookies immediately.

clear recent history firefox

The Firefox options, located under Tools > Options offer controls to block third party cookies in the web browser. Locate the Privacy tab, and there the entry Accept third-party cookies. Remove the checkmark next to the preference to block tracking cookies and other third party cookies in the Firefox web browser.

firefox block third party cookies

Verdict

All popular web browsers offer controls to block third party cookies. Some advertising companies use Flash Cookies to track users. Please follow the link to the article linked above to find out how those can be deleted from the system as well.

The portable software Flash Cookies Cleaner is another program that can be used to quickly remove all flash cookies from a computer system.

The software program will automatically analyze the system and display all Flash cookies that it finds during the analysis in its interface.

A click on the Delete button will remove all Flash cookies from the PC. There is unfortunately no option to remove only selected cookies from the system.

Users who want to delete specific sites that have placed Flash cookies on the computer system need to use the Adobe web controls instead to do so. This is recommended for users who play online games or visit websites that save preferences and settings in Flash cookies.

Flash Cookies Cleaner can be downloaded from Softpedia.

Most web browsers offer a basic cookie management module that can be used to delete some or all cookies and to configure how and when websites may store cookies on the computer system.

But they usually do not offer more sophisticated means of working with cookies like whitelisting some cookies that are needed and deleting the rest.

Selective Cookie Delete is a Firefox add-on that can be used for that purpose. It offers a feature to either whitelist or blacklists cookies on specific domains.

A user could for instance whitelist cookies that are needed to access a website’s functionality on a regular basis. The same could be achieved by manually deleting cookies that are no longer needed after ever browsing session but this poses the risk of forgetting to do it and to accidentally delete the wrong cookie.

The Selective Cookie Delete configuration menu can be accessed from the Firefox status bar after installation.

The options in the main configuration window include configuring domains that should be blacklisted or those that should be whitelisted. A click on the Edit Site List button next to each option can be used to open a listing that displays all cookies that are currently stored on the computer system and the domains that are already whitelisted or blacklisted. Domains can here easily be added to the whitelist or blacklist.

It is only possible to use one of the options meaning that the user can either whitelist domains or blacklist them but not both.

It is recommended to select the “automatically remove cookies as per preferences when Firefox is closed” in the configuration menu and not in Firefox directly as the Firefox directive will delete protected cookies as well.

Selective Cookie Delete can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Take a look at our Flash Cookies Explained article if you have not heard about this sort of cookies before, it will provide the overview needed.

Flash Cookies View will automatically display the flash cookies (also known as Local Shared Objects) that are stored on the computer system. Each Flash cookie is displayed in its own row that lists information that includes the originating url, file name, time the cookie was created and modified, the file size and file path.

The data can be sorted by each available column which makes it easier to locate specific contents. A search is provided as well to find cookies that contain the keywords entered in the search form.

The software program will display flash cookies that are stored in the default location of the operating system by default. It does however provide the option to change that default location to another path.

Selected items can be saved in a text document or added to an html report. It is furthermore possible to delete selected flash cookies and to change the display mode from cookie values to hex values.

Flash Cookies View is a portable software program for all supported Microsoft operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The program has been released yesterday and is available for download at the Nirsoft website.

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.

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.

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’.

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.

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.