Can anyone tell me about cookies of the computer kind?
What are they, how can they be used for evil?

A cookie can be plain or chocolate chip....

Seriously they are small text files that store information. Such as with a forum like this they can hold your login data. That is how when you show up each time you do not have to log back in if you check the little box. They can hold other info as well. Almoast every website you look at and EVERY SINGLE ad that you view, voluntary or not will attempt to place a cookie on your computer.

Some are used to log you in, as a matter of convenience. Some store surfing data, and page views. It is less the cookie itself that is bad than the manner of harvesting and what is done after that. An ad company will try to get you to ok the installation of a "adserver" program that uses your cookies to fine tune the pop-up ads you see. Some will try to redirect your browser to other sites and some will try to do other nasty things to your computer.

Thank Bill Gates (sarcasm) and buy a Mac or a Linux machine.

I had the following message from my spybot program on a particular cookie I had. It had the following information:



Is this safe or is this malicious?

What can they do if it is malicious?

.

Just have spybot remove them all.

In my eyes it is malicious.

???

cookies aren't specific to windows computers or to internet explorer - *all* computers that connect to the internet are susceptible to spyware and adware. If you want to be completely safe you have to unplug from the internet and not add any software.

Barring that, the best you can do is keep your firewall on (windows xp has a decent one), keep auto-updates turned on, keep your anti-virus software updated, and run a program like ad-aware weekly to clean off tracking cookies.

But I am a hater Al......

Thanks for all the advice guys!

Steve, what makes it look malicious to you? What do you think it means?

If I know what website it is for sure, can I report it to someone or does anyone really care?

Doesn't usually go very far (reports), unless actual viruses are being sent to site visitors. All you can do is be vigilant in cleaning your computer often and avoid known sites.