Browser Cookies for Dummies... Again

Browser cookies

In case you haven't noticed, Americans have a weight problem. Maybe it's because they don't know what to do with cookies.Wait, not that kind of cookies: a surprising number of Americans don't seem to be able to figure out what to do with the cookies that web browsers (well, actually, websites you visit with your browser) leave all on your computer. That's probably why people type searches like "How to Remove Cookies With Windows 7"¹ into their favorite search engine. Sadly, one of the first "answers" they'll get is an eHow.com article (now filed under ItStillWorks by the folks at Leaf) that Keith Patrick scribbled down late one night...

Patrick, just one more cog in Demand Media's vast machine of journalism and "communications" majors and graduates, blew it in the very first paragraph, the introduction:

"Windows 7's default Web browser, Internet Explorer, automatically saves the cookies -- small text files -- from each website that you visit. Cookies are designed to speed up the loading time for websites you visit often, but too many cookies can take up disk space on your computer."

Dude, that's not what cookies do... you're confusing cookies with the temporary files, especially images, stored by the browser. Store the banner of a website temporarily, and you don't have to reload it on every page or every visit -- that's what temporary internet files (aka the browser cache) are for. Cookies? Well, the main thing Keith got right is that cookies are small files. That pretty much negates his claim that "too many cookies can take up disk space" -- at a couple of KB each, you'd have to have a million or so around to use up enough disk space to be noticeable in these days of terabyte drives. Idiot. No, the reason people want to delete their cookies is that these little files contain identifying information, including but not limited to login information, site preferences, location, and the like. Sites cookies to track users across the internet, which is why a user may see an advertisement for the shoes she recently viewed at amazon while on the website of her local grocery stores. Yeah, they're that connected...

In addition to misinforming, Patrick does his readers another disservice: he provides instructions for removing cookies from Internet Explorer, the now discontinued Microsoft Browser. As of the end of 2015, less than 10% of internet traffic passed through IE... but, maybe Keith thought that "Windows 7" is a browser.
Keith got the instructions right, at least for more recent versions of IE. Unfortunately, he didn't mention the process for any of the four most widely-used browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or the UC browser). Even though he lacked the slightest idea of what he was talking about and only talked about one browser of the many in use, Patrick is still a winner -- of the Dumbass of the Day award!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_8255067_remove-cookies-windows-7.html

copyright © 2017-2021 scmrak

SE - COMPUTERS