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)

This prompt since then has been removed by Mozilla. Firefox users who want to re-enable the prompt in the Firefox browser can install the AskForSanitize add-on to do that. The add-on basically displays the clear recent history window whenever the user closes the browser.

Here it is then possible to clear everything or only select data sets. Users can for instance delete the cache, browsing and download history or site preferences in the dialog. The time range to clear pulldown menu can be used to delete data that is older than the selected time range.

The Firefox extension ships with a toolbar button that triggers the delete browsing data prompt on mouse click. It is not added automatically to a toolbar, which means that users need to place it there manually (by right-clicking a toolbar, selecting customize and dragging and dropping the button to the desired location on a Firefox toolbar).

One question that may come up is this: Why would anyone want to display the delete browsing history window on exit if it can be configured to run on exit automatically?

The core reason here obviously would be if the data only needs to be deleted at times and not on all exits of the browser. The automation here is a more comfortable than triggering the deletion dialog manually whenever it is needed.

Which leads directly to the following question: How often do you clear your browsing data?

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.

Google Chrome Canary recently introduced the option to clear plug-in related temporary contents when clearing the browsing data, and it appears that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer will follow suit.

A recent post on the Internet Explorer blog highlights the change: Microsoft has added relevant APIS back when Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 was released. With Adobe’s implementation of the new controls in Flash Player 10.3, it is now possible to delete Flash Cookies directly in Internet Explorer.

Adobe is implementing the new controls in Flash Player 10.3 which is currently available as a release candidate. Users who want to clean Flash Cookies in Internet Explorer need to download and install the Flash Player 10.3 release candidate, but do not need to make direct changes to Internet Explorer. The final version of Adobe Flash Player 10.3 will be released in the near future.

Microsoft has created a demo page where users can test the new feature.

You can use the demo page to create a Flash Cookie which gets saved on your system. You can test that by pressing F5 or reloading the page with a click on the reload button. The page should echo the information that a Flash Cookie is stored on your system.

This Flash Cookie, along with all others, will be deleted if you delete Internet Explorer’s browsing history. You can delete the browsing history under Tools > Safety > Delete Browsing History. Please note that you need Adobe Flash Player 10.3 or newer for this to work.

Both Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 support the feature out of the box.

The demonstration page works flawlessly under Google Chrome as well, which means that Canary users can test their browser’s cookie cleaning functionality as well.

Other browser developers like Mozilla have already announced that they will integrate Flash Cookies cleaning in future browser versions as well.

It seems as if we are finally able to resolve the Flash Cookies problem once and for all.

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.

Go to Youtube, increase or decrease the volume of the videos and delete all cookies afterwards. You will notice that the volume level is still at the same level when you close your browser and open it again. This is done with so called Local Shared Objects, better known as Flash cookies. The main question is of course how a computer can be checked for Flash cookies and how it would be possible to delete those cookies again.

This is actually a very tricky thing. I was searching for a way to check them on my computer but could not find it. After reading some information on the Adobe Flash Player website I was able to realize that the only possibility to check them was to open a page on the Adobe site which would show them.

The so called Settings Manager can be accessed from the Adobe website but is running locally on your computer. The Website Storage Settings display all Flash cookies that are currently saved on your computer. You can delete flash cookies from individual sites or all at once. It is also possible to increase or decrease the Kilobyte size of all information that are stored on your computer.

Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer.

No Flash Cookies will be saved if you go into Global Storage Settings and disable the option “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”.

47 websites did store Flash cookies on my computer and I decided to delete all of them and disable the feature to be on the safe site. Did you know about Flash cookies ? How many did you find on your pc ?