COOKIES. We all hear all about them. And many of us have gotten scared of them.

Here is what one of my cookies looks like. Cookies are only tiny tiny "text files". You could make (a pretend) one. Just open up notepad, put in a short line or two of stuff - save it with the right sort of name to the right folder. Well, it wouldn't WORK like a cookie.. but

Here is one my cookies when you open it up to read it.
"rsi_ct
2006_10_22:2
comedy.aol.com/
1088
466526720
29816430
4058350512
29816228
*"
I can "read" enough of it to see the website (comedy.aol.com) and the date I went there (10-22-06). The numbers? who knows. but they aren't hurting me, aren't hurting my computer and such.

Now, there ARE some advertising cookies that do some sorts of tracking... and my spyware looks for that kind and has found one in many years. Guess I go to mostly good places.

I go thru my cookie folder periodically and toss all the ones that start with "ad" or "adver" ... and from websites I will never return to. I even recently set my cookies acquisition mode to "approve or disapprove all".

This allows me to decide whether or not I want to be collecting cookies from a given website. Then I approve all the medical, psychological and psychiatry, my forums of course, and every last website I feel is mostly there to be helpful and informative to me. The ones I am most likely to return to. Cookies are NECESSARY for a forum to know when to show a change in color or bold-facing of links - so you know what threads you've already looked at, tells you when a new post has been added... stuff like that.

A lot of cookies are "per session" cookies. They are permanently deleted, automatically, after you are offline or when you reboot.

any, thought I would show you one of my cookies.

Theresa