Hi In my AVG Virus Vault I have a lot of tracking cookies such as Yieldmanager, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Mediaplex, Serving.sys. These are just a few. Is it safe to delete these from the virus vault?
Question about Tracking Cookies
- Thread starter Firetastic
- Start date
Bin the lot.
They are not a problem and any of the sites that installed them will just put another one on your computer if you visit the site again.
Most cookies are placed on your computer by sites that you log onto so that they recognise you next time you visit and you don't need to go through the logging on and password bit.
You can set your browser to clear the history and cookies when you close it but if it removes all the cookies then you need to know all your usernames and passwords for every site.
Part of the problem is that AVG is a little over cautious when it comes to tracking cookies and doesn't trust many of them.
dave
They are not a problem and any of the sites that installed them will just put another one on your computer if you visit the site again.
Most cookies are placed on your computer by sites that you log onto so that they recognise you next time you visit and you don't need to go through the logging on and password bit.
You can set your browser to clear the history and cookies when you close it but if it removes all the cookies then you need to know all your usernames and passwords for every site.
Part of the problem is that AVG is a little over cautious when it comes to tracking cookies and doesn't trust many of them.
dave
J
Jimbo1978
dave.m is right. They are like mini site loading scripts although some are designed to look for post codes and trends etc. They will then give certain web sites some simple info to enable user specific browsing and direct you to stuff it thinks you like. Dont worry about them. Tell avg to reduce its virus vault size and it will bin them when it gets full.
That's great however when I had AVG 8.5 I had some Trojan Horse dropper.bravix in my vault. When I upgraded to AVG 9.0 I had a look and they seemed to have disappeared. Would they have been deleted when I upgraded? Thank you very much. This forum is great.
J
Jimbo1978
AVG would have killed and deleted it. 9.0 is the same as 8.5 but with extra sub routines and better heuristic tracking.
You all seem a very knowledgable bunch on here. Thanks for the all the advice and information.
Sorry, I must disagree they ARE a problem, they are quite sinister.
What dave.m means by they are not a problem is they haven't compromised your computer, but what they do is worse than many of the things which do compromise your computer.
See, the only thing a cookie does is to store a piece of information (any piece) on your computer. This is normally used to enable a company to recognise you are the same person who visited before when you visit their website again, which seems harmess enough, until you realize these companies sell that data to eachother. I have visited websites before, only to buy things from certain e-commerce websites and then get spammed to death in the post from the other companies who's sites I visited earlier - they now have my name, address and some of the web sites I visit, what my interests are, etc.
They are not supposed to do this, it is illegal, but the information commissioner in the UK is a eunuch and the companies do as they will. If I were you, I would set up your browser to at the very least delete all cookies at the end of every browsing session, it would be better to block them - but this will quickly annoy you - deleting them all at the end of every session is a good compromise.
What dave.m means by they are not a problem is they haven't compromised your computer, but what they do is worse than many of the things which do compromise your computer.
See, the only thing a cookie does is to store a piece of information (any piece) on your computer. This is normally used to enable a company to recognise you are the same person who visited before when you visit their website again, which seems harmess enough, until you realize these companies sell that data to eachother. I have visited websites before, only to buy things from certain e-commerce websites and then get spammed to death in the post from the other companies who's sites I visited earlier - they now have my name, address and some of the web sites I visit, what my interests are, etc.
They are not supposed to do this, it is illegal, but the information commissioner in the UK is a eunuch and the companies do as they will. If I were you, I would set up your browser to at the very least delete all cookies at the end of every browsing session, it would be better to block them - but this will quickly annoy you - deleting them all at the end of every session is a good compromise.
A bit OTT.
Use Ccleaner to save the cookies that you want and then let it remove the rest.
Not much point in removing cookies for sites that you sign into on a daily basis or you would be having to remember all your usernames and passwords, which can be a pain in the butt.
I don't think getting spammed to death by companies is down to leaving a cookie on your computer from a company that you have bought things from. I buy on the internet and don't get spammed. The only thing I do get is emails from Amazon with things related to what I have bought from them but that is not down to cookies, because they know what they have sold me.
Sorry but that’s a really daft idea if you are a serious internet user & regularly visit the same sites; banking, buying, gathering information, this & other Forums to name just a few & the majority of them aren’t a threat, it's visiting “moody” sites you need to watch
. If you delete ALL your cookies you will have to go through the tedious log on procedure every time you visit a regularly used site. If you have a decent ISP, just mark the ones you don’t want as trash & you won’t even see them in your inbox; or, as I do, have a second (or even 3rd) E mail account you can use when visiting sites that will obviously bomb you.It's not a daft idea if you have some sort of password manager to encrypt/decrypt and re-enter your logins. You can think what you like, but you are ignorant, companies in this country do regularly ignore data protection legislation here is an example of T-Mobile employees fencing your mobile phone contract details (telephone number, address, etc, millions of them), if you don't think it happens you are wrong and coming here and telling me so is a lot like me going to the building forum and telling you that you don't know what you are saying.
You are getting a bit neurotic.
Employees selling details of mobile phone contracts is nowt to do with cookies on a computer. Those details are on the companies computers and even if the T Mobile customers sorted their accounts out on the internet then removed the cookies everytime, that would not stop employees having access to the accounts.
People like you cause some of the computer novices to panic and make them too scared to use the web as it should be used, to make life easier.
Employees selling details of mobile phone contracts is nowt to do with cookies on a computer. Those details are on the companies computers and even if the T Mobile customers sorted their accounts out on the internet then removed the cookies everytime, that would not stop employees having access to the accounts.
People like you cause some of the computer novices to panic and make them too scared to use the web as it should be used, to make life easier.
It's not neurotic, it does happen. Hell, it happens in some of the places I've worked let alone anything else.
Having newbies delete cookies after every session is a tick box, a good idea, and not a deal breaker.
As for T-Mobile not having anything to do with cookies, that's like me rejecting an argument you made against selling guns to iran because they fired missiles at an innocent party. Sure, missiles are not guns, but they are both weapons and databases are where cookies end up, just like the database the T-Mobile employees sold.
Anyway, I'm not going to further defend something I know is right, you can examine what I said and believe or disbelieve, it's up to you. If you want to make cookies session only, just goto your Firefox preferences, click on the privacy tab then change the scroll box so it reads Keep until "I close Firefox". In future, exit and restart your browser after you visit any website you give personal details to such as your address. It's easy, I do it myself.
Dave: You remind me of one time some kid told me I could catch a virus by viewing an image. I told him he was an idiot, I needed to run a program, he said OK, look at this image then. I looked at it. He called me an idiot, I said you are the idiot.
FIVE YEARS later, there was a zero-day exploit announcement for the Microsoft JPEG buffer overflow which allows arbitrary code execution.
Having newbies delete cookies after every session is a tick box, a good idea, and not a deal breaker.
As for T-Mobile not having anything to do with cookies, that's like me rejecting an argument you made against selling guns to iran because they fired missiles at an innocent party. Sure, missiles are not guns, but they are both weapons and databases are where cookies end up, just like the database the T-Mobile employees sold.
Anyway, I'm not going to further defend something I know is right, you can examine what I said and believe or disbelieve, it's up to you. If you want to make cookies session only, just goto your Firefox preferences, click on the privacy tab then change the scroll box so it reads Keep until "I close Firefox". In future, exit and restart your browser after you visit any website you give personal details to such as your address. It's easy, I do it myself.
Dave: You remind me of one time some kid told me I could catch a virus by viewing an image. I told him he was an idiot, I needed to run a program, he said OK, look at this image then. I looked at it. He called me an idiot, I said you are the idiot.
FIVE YEARS later, there was a zero-day exploit announcement for the Microsoft JPEG buffer overflow which allows arbitrary code execution.
Hmmm, ignorant am I
; your obviously a neurotic with an anxiety complex about spies & nasties intent on invading your personal space. I’m careful about my personal data & never give away more than I have to. I don’t really give a stuff about spam or anyone selling harmless details about me, they really are just wasting their time & money; at the end of the day I have a delete button. For someone as concerned about mostly harmless cookies as you seem to be, my advice would be to skip your internet PC & live a peaceful but ignorantly uniformed life. 
Cookies can't know your e-mail address and therefore lead to spamming, although companies dealt with who have been given your e-mail address could pass it on to others. True that tracking cookies can track you around the Internet though, most often for the purposes of showing adverts. I don't worry about them but many people do.
Firefox users can use extensions that control cookies, One is called CookieCuller. This protects login cookies and other cookies that might be needed but deletes others when the browser is closed.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/82[/i]
Firefox users can use extensions that control cookies, One is called CookieCuller. This protects login cookies and other cookies that might be needed but deletes others when the browser is closed.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/82[/i]
Which is exactly how they do find out your e-mail address, an advertising network which has a tracking cookie on your browser gets it from another company who you gave it to, whos site they advertise on then pass it on to others.
