Dan's AdSubtract and cookies

[kayofcircles]

This is a continuation of the Sea's "Tired of DoubleClick" post. Dan said in the last post there that "BTW, according to my AdSubtract stats, PC Guide has attempted to show me 9 ads and to place 18 cookies in the ~ 1 hour I've been here reading. All have been blocked by AdSubtract" Now, I don't mind the ad part a bit..as ixl pointed out recently, I am definitely an addict and need my PC Guide fix every day and want to support this site in any way possible. But 18 cookies??? That seems like a lot of cookies, particularly when I thought that one only received one cookie per site.

I am lazy. I admit it. Don't want to disable all my cookies because then have to reenter passwords and such every time I go check Hotmail, or go to post here. So my question here is whether there is a halfway "cookie" selection. Could I run around and deliberately collect cookies for places I spend time and then disable cookie collection? Or would that negate the ones I want? BTW, I can't find it now, but months ago set it to "prompt me" for cookie collection..which it did about twice, then proceeded to collect cookies as usual.

And a side question. Every once in awhile, just for the heck of it, I go and delete all the cookies. What is that "index.dat" file in my Cookie folder, and is it safe to delete? Would be easier when I am in the housecleaning mood to just selectall and delete.

[kaos]

Hi Kay,
Not sure about all the answers to your questions, but, I have a utility called Cookiewall from AnalogX (I would link you to it, but, I'm at work on a 56k, very slow) and that imo is a great utility. You can tell it what cookies to accept/what not and you can also just delete all cookies every session when your done. Very easy to configure. I use ad-aware 5.5 also and since I've had Cookiewall, I've had no ad-aware hits when I run it, probably for the last 5 mos. or so.
The index.dat you can't delete, actually you can it's hard, but you will just get it back on startup. You need that so I'd leave that alone.

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Thankful there's an Edit button!

[buck52]

Kayofcircles

Spider (http://www.fsm.nl/ward/) is a little program that allows you to see and then delete cookies, temporary internet files ,history, and the hidden URL's in the index.dat folder but...as Kaos said the index.dat file starts filling up again on startup. Pretty amazing how many files there are that you can't see.

buck

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just hav'n fun

[Steve]

Hi Kay,

You've brought up one of my favorite topis. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

There are several "cookie managers" out there. Some free, some not. I use Norton CleanSweep to manage my cookies. It has a list of your cookies, where you can select to keep or delete. Very good.

If you're using IE, you can click tools, internet option, security, custom level, scroll down to cookies. The setting I like is Prompt, for cookies that are stored and Enable, for per session cookies. There are a few cookies, well 14 to be exact, that I keep stored. The cookies for this site are an example. I refuse all other store cookies. The per session cookies seem to be for passwords and things like that. It expires when you turn off the computer.

Ahhh yes! The infamous index.dat file. This is a file that IE creates and wont give up. It keeps a list of ALL the url's you've ever visited. It seems that way, anyway. There's a program called SPIDER. http://www.fsm.nl/ward/

It accesses the file and lets you delete the contents. The first time I used it, I came up with 15MB in the file!

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

It looked like every website I've ever been to was there.

I guess the real guestion is...why is this file there?

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[buck52]

did someone say Spider http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

buck

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just hav'n fun

[Steve]

Heh heh http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

Sorry guy, took me so long to write up that post. You got in there before me and I guess I should have looked before hittin' the POST button.

Nice little program. I must agree.

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[buck52]

No problem...just teasing http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

I like the sound of clean sweep..Spider does a good job but if I let it at my cookies then I have to reset my profile and passwod for here and other sites. definitely a pain. I have put this site and a few others in trusted site in IE security and enabled cookies there but it take them also.

Still trying to figure it all out

buck

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just hav'n fun

[Steve]

Here's a link to some of the "cookie manager" programs.
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/search.html

From the looks of it, there's alot of call for this kinda thing.

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[This message has been edited by Steve (edited 08-20-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Steve (edited 08-20-2001).]

[Steve]

Ummm... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/redface.gif

I can't seem to get that link to work. BUT! If you put "cookie manager" into the query box... it MIGHT take you there...

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[buck52]

thanks http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

buck

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just hav'n fun

[mjc]

You can delete the index.dat, but it must be done in DOS, and when you restart it will be re-created, with all the cookies still in it if you haven't removed them. If you wipe out the cookies it will be blank, until youstart out surfing. The trick is to get the cookies you want, delete the rest and then wipe the index. Also areas to check for history stuff are the history folder, typed URLS (there are several utilities to check that too, or if you are really brave, hunt them down in the registry itself), autocomplete (info is stored all over the place in the registry, some of it encrypted). An easy way to delete a bunch of the autocomplete stuff is to go to a site that you need to enter data and when you start and it wants to autocomplete hi-light each item on the drop-down list and then hit the delete key.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

[kayofcircles]

Thanks all!! I have a light bulb on mjc's post regarding the dropdown delete stuff. My ISP changed my addy months ago and I have several options on the drop down boxes that are obsolete...I didn't know I could get rid of them...cool!

I also didn't check Properties on that index.dat...had no idea. Wonder if that explains the Favorites folder weirdness too. Added to Favorites yesterday, and was saving to floppy. Not that big in Explorer, but something like 10 times as big on the floppy.

Thanks, Steve, for the whole path. I kept looking under Tools in OE and wasn't under Security tab. I had put it on Prompt..but it's back to Enable. Interesting. Will try again as per your instructions.

Again, I thank you all. Was talking to my son yesterday and telling him stuff I had learned here that he didn't know. Ha! Have to keep just slightly ahead of the kids. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Dan Mitchell]

Kay-The 18 figure may be a bit misleading, in retrospect it's probably more accurate to say the site attempted to place a cookie 18 times. It may be for example that the site attempted to set the same cookie (i.e., exact same bit of data) 18 times, or 3 cookies 6 times, or attempted to set one (or more) cookies which it then attempted to update over time as a result of the way I used the site, etc. Cookies have been a real pet pieve of mine since I started online ~7 years ago, at that time all you could do was set the browser (I think it was Mosaic, to give an idea how long ago this was) to tell you the site wanted to set a cookie, and ask for permission to allow it. Typically, the site would ask "wanna cookie...wanna cookie... wanna cookie...wanna cookie...wanna cookie" (or words to that effect) a bizzillion times in a period of about 3 seconds, until you got so tired of clicking no...no...no...NO...NO!!!! incessantly and just accepted the damned thing. Then a couple minutes later the whole thing would start again (on that site or another). Unless you make extensive use of sites like investment trackers etc. which need to store detailed info on your account or interests, I'd suggest you check out AdSubtract.

Dan

[Dan Mitchell]

Originally posted by Steve:

Ahhh yes! The infamous index.dat file. This is a file that IE creates and wont give up. It keeps a list of ALL the url's you've ever visited. It seems that way, anyway. There's a program called SPIDER. http://www.fsm.nl/ward/

It accesses the file and lets you delete the contents. The first time I used it, I came up with 15MB in the file!

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

It looked like every website I've ever been to was there.

I guess the real guestion is...why is this file there?


I only use IE for newsgroups, preferring Netscape for browsing & e-mail. Recently, while trolling my harddrive for pointless crap, in c:\windows\temp I came upon what appeared to be the complete threads (txt files) of every newsgroup discussion in which I had participated (including, in all their embarassing detail, each and every unfortunate post I had made one night under the pseudonym "ShavemeWhipme" to the alt.sado.masochism newsgroup. God, was I REALLY *that drunk*??? http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif )

But seriously, what IS the reason for storing this stuff??? From the looks of them, the newsgroup posts were each message I had opened. My topics of discussion actually tend to be fairly mundane (give you an idea, a bunch of them were to an Asian food newsgroup on the topic of how to use chopsticks...THAT I'm NOT making up http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif ) but it's not hard to imagine scenarios wherein one might not WANT every person with access to their pc (via the household, a security breach, or yes even a search warrant) to see each and every site they had visited, however briefly, each and every newsgroup post they had made or even just READ, however impulsively. This should have been glaringly apparent even to the slugs at M$.

Dan

[Steve]

You got it, Dan.

I think...for every file, there is a purpose.
I wonder just what is the purpose of these index.dat files.
There's more than one on my machine.
One in C:\WINDOWS\TemporaryInternetFiles\ContentIE5
and another in C:\WINDOWS\Cookies

I guess I'm just the suspicious kind.
Haven't got a satisfying answer yet.

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Peace and Love, brothers and sisters. Peace and Love

[Vic 970]

I've been using a trial version of HistoryKill (until the 30 days expired) & now using cleanup (a freeware version) which are SUPPOSED to empty the machine of useless/incriminating/space wasting, entries, cookies etc. also I had my autocomplete switched off as it was getting on my nerves.

Since reading this, I have switched autocomplete back on & there is obviously some old info left on my machine.

I have just downloaded 'AutoWhat' & have managed to clear some of it, but some still remains (have'nt really got into autowhat yet though) but is it possible to clear it all, and even stop the PC from collecting this rubbish when we don't want it?

I feel that the machine is in control of me, rather than me being in control of it. a status which I'm not too keen on.

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for every question there's an answer. Then a load more questions.

Regards..,
Vic.

[Vic 970]

I've been using a trial version of HistoryKill (until the 30 days expired) & now using cleanup (a freeware version) which are SUPPOSED to empty the machine of useless/incriminating/space wasting, entries, cookies etc. also I had my autocomplete switched off as it was getting on my nerves.

Since reading this, I have switched autocomplete back on & there is obviously some old info left on my machine.

I have just downloaded 'AutoWhat' & have managed to clear some of it, but some still remains (have'nt really got into autowhat yet though) but is it possible to clear it all, and even stop the PC from collecting this rubbish when we don't want it?

I feel that the machine is in control of me, rather than me being in control of it. a status which I'm not too keen on.

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for every question there's an answer. Then a load more questions.

Regards..,
Vic.

[Dan Mitchell]

Originally posted by Vic 970:

I feel that the machine is in control of me, rather than me being in control of it. a status which I'm not too keen on.


Vic-I know what you mean. For me, the feeling most often creeps up when the machine refuses to do something, the only explanation being some uselessly vague error box. At such times I often scream at it *I* own *YOU*, to remind it of who's boss (an approach which would probably be a bit more effective if the pc were actually equiped with a microphone http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif )

I think another aspect of the problem you touch on is much broader than computers. Technological advances which do or have to potential to impact many lives are increasingly understood by fewer and fewer people, a truly unfortunate situation ripe for exploitation by the less-than-scrupulous.

Dan

[Vic 970]

Have been trying Spider, Autowhat, & AdAware, plus looking at what else is available & checking on user opinions (plus anything else I could find) & whereas they yield some surprising results, (& for the most part useful) they do not go all the way & are pretty tedious to use. Have looked at a prog called 'window wipe' but the reviews weren't that good & someone suggested 'eraser' but from what I can gather that isn't the same thing, & is basically the same as 'wipe.exe', which I have already got.

Spider falls down on firstly the help menu, & the fact that it has no 'highlight all' to do a clean. If it could be configured to delete & wipe all selected items at start up or shut down it would be a much more beneficial prog.

Autowhat only partly did its job (or maybe spider did it!) as I still get autocomplete entries immediately after using it.

I have read some about altering the registry & the autoexec.bat to make some of the progs 'read only' which seems logical, but apparently IE works around that and produces another index.dat file. it is suggested that it gives up eventually & by making each of the files 'read only' you can obtain an acceptable result. but you can present other problems also. & how do you know when IE has REALLY given up?

There surely must be progs out there somewhere that can clear this data automatically?

These are the sort of tools that I want in 'My maintainance' folder. That is a folder that I set up myself with things like; backup,undelete,wipe,clear cache, etc. in it which I can access instantly, & run when I'm finished with the pc for the day. (I did try putting some of these type of progs onto CD so that I could also use them on other machines but of course some of them wouldn't run from CD)

But we may be straying from the subject here so I think I'll ask for suggestions on another post for that one.

I use cleanup frequently which gets rid of the temp files etc. which is quick & easy to use. If anyone knows of a similar prog that does the same with the hidden files, please, let us know.


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for every question there's an answer. Then a load more questions.

Regards..,
Vic.