What are cookies, why are they needed, and how to delete them?
What are cookies and what are they for, we will analyze in the next material from the heading "".
Cookies (eng. Cookie - "cookie") are small text files with service information left in your browser by the sites you visited. Service information in cookies can be very different. This may be the collection of statistical information by site owners, remembering the user's individual settings, for example, saving the visual settings of the site that the user has made (if the site allows this: fonts, colors, etc.), remembering the visitor's region, if the resource has such an option, storage of registration data and much more.
For example, when entering from an account on a forum, social network (the so-called authorization) or any other site where such an action is required, your browser offers to remember the entered data so that next time you automatically enter this resource under your profile without authorization, i.e. . without re-entering the login-password pair.
The vast majority of sites where registration data is required require that the user's browser has the ability to accept cookies enabled. Although this feature is initially enabled in all browsers, it happens that advanced users turn it off in the browser settings.
Or another example of remembering the actions of a site visitor using cookies: when making purchases in an online store, you put the selected products in a virtual basket, where they will wait for the final order, even if you leave the site, deciding to make a purchase later.
Why you need to delete cookies
If initially cookies were invented solely for the user's comfort, then with the development of advertising and statistical networks, the main function of "cookies" was to accumulate the maximum amount of information about the user: what sites he visits, what he is interested in, what he most often searches for on the Internet, what operating system he has. it is installed, which browser it uses and much more. The collected information is used to display targeted advertising and for other purposes known only to interested parties.
While surfing the Internet, you most likely came across the work of targeted or contextual advertising, when sites “suddenly” show you an advertisement for a product or service that you have recently been interested in by entering an interesting query into a search engine. This is an example of how cookies and other information-gathering tools remember your interests and pop up relevant ads in hopes of a potential buyer.
However, this is not the most unpleasant feature of cookies, after all, contextual advertising can also help the user in finding the necessary seller of a service or product. The main disadvantage of cookies is that information from them can be intercepted, both when exchanging browser data with sites, and reading them from the computer's memory using viruses that have entered the user's computer. The use of cookies always carries the potential risk of confidential information (logins, passwords, payment details, etc.) falling into the hands of intruders. For a better understanding, imagine that your wardrobe number fell into the wrong hands, and someone got your expensive coat. Cookies are a kind of wardrobe number, by which an attacker can get your property.
Therefore, you need to delete cookies to avoid:
- Collection of user data for advertising and other purposes.
- Eliminate the risk of confidential information falling into the wrong hands.
Point 2 is especially important for those who actively use online stores and services in which the buyer's bank card is linked to his account for ease of payment, so as not to enter payment details every time.
It is also necessary to delete cookies if several people use the computer under the same account. Always delete cookies in this case, or at least log out when you are finished working with your accounts by clicking on the link " Go out" or " Exit”, which is always present in your profile when you log in to the resource.
With this exit from the account, the site sends a command to the browser to delete cookies with saved data from your account. So you exclude the possibility of logging into your account to another person who has shared access to a PC.
What happens when you delete cookies
Nothing bad will happen when you delete cookies from your browser. The browser will simply forget the entered logins and passwords from all accounts, and the user will need to re-enter them the next time they visit. We can say that the browser will be erased the memory in which it stored your actions when visiting sites.
It is much safer to store logins in a written form in a notepad or special programs like Roboform, remembering to back up stored passwords to external media or cloud services, than to allow the browser to store them in cookies. Moreover, if the computer crashes or the browser is deleted, the passwords in it will be lost.
How to delete cookies in the browser
You can delete cookies in two ways:
- In browser settings.
- With the help of special programs for cleaning file garbage.
Delete cookies with CCleaner
CCleaner is one of the most popular and free programs for cleaning garbage files, including cookies in browsers. If you use several browsers to view pages on the Internet, then it is very convenient to use it to delete cookies from all browsers at once, without digging into the settings of each specific browser for this.
It is very easy to work with the program. First of all, you need to download it from the official site by selecting the Free version (free) and onto your PC.
On first launch select " Russian language”, if the program was installed in English.
To clear the operating system and cookies in browsers, go to the " cleaning» in the left column. In the right column, switching between the tabs " Windows" and " Applications"You can see what exactly the program will clear and, if necessary, uncheck or check the necessary items.
Click the button cleaning" to search for junk files and cookies on your computer. Confirm your intention by clicking on the "OK" button in the window that appears and wait for CCleaner to finish working with the report output in the main program window.
Then close the program until the next use.
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