Fed up digestive biscuits?

[TheGingerBeardMan]

.
I've just spotted the <A> in the top right corner of the screen on this forum, that makes the writing bigger (never noticed it before as it blends in too well with the background).

So, now I can read some stuff without having to sit on my monitor.

Then, at the very bottom right is something that says Delete all board cookies.

I don't want to click that, for fear of losing everything I've posted.

So, what is a bored cookie? Is it a fed up digestive biscuit?

[chric]

nice never noticed it myself

[bald_pig]

A cookie is a little file that tells the website information, so for here, it would be your username, if you've checked the "keep me signed in" option.

For sites like Amazon, it helps to track what items you've looked at, so it can give you similar items.

A boring version of what I said can be found here: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/

[TheGingerBeardMan]

Thanks for that bald_pig - that there is scary reading!

And there's me thinking that even with an anti-virus and anti-malware, I can be safe from "being tracked" with what I look at on Amazon, or Gumtree etc.

That'll maybe explain why I get bombarded withy sh1te half the time.

I've always thought it strange that say, I was looking at a short holiday, then a few days later, I get about 10 emails all with holiday crap on it.

But, many of the emails I can't explain. I mean, I haven't enquired about a new watch or Richard extension - yet I seem to get loads of those emails offering me cheap deals....

[bald_pig]

I've also seen sites that will bump up prices of certain things if you start looking at them a lot!

Problem is, they can be useful or annoying!

I'm sure Carl will be along with cookie-blocking software soon.

[VTRDark]

A for accessibility.

OMG if I was to list what I use to block the rubbish, protect myself and speed up my page load times (browsing experience) then you would have to be geek.

Start with a decent Browser. That means staying well away from Google and IE and don't go using Google as your search engine, well, not directly anyway. You can start with something like https://startpage.com/ and don't install the Adobe Flash plugin either (ACL's), Flash can even access your WebCam if you allow it. Lets be clear here, Viruses and Malware are nothing to do with cookies and trackers, though these can be utilised as transport. The best way to spread malicious code around these days is to hide it in an innocent looking joke or image on social networking sites and then let the stupidity of people spread it around for you, or go playing in unknown/untrusted sources that Fileshare. Only download from reliable known sources and yes your best friend that sends you a link to something is not always best because often your best friend wont have a clue.

As has been mentioned some Cookies can be useful to remember the likes of form fields, and others are not as useful and basically monitor and tailor things towards you in sometimes a negative way. Pounds being one of them as also mentioned. Also who is to decide what you purchase except you. We don't want sites telling us what we should purchase. Adverts are tailored towards you and what you browse purchase etc, so if you share you computer account with your other half and all of a sudden you get adverts for bondage gear, your other half may have a fetish you don't know about Saying that though cookies are rarely used for that these days. Trackers are used instead and in particular Flash is utilised for transport. Look at the control that the likes of, for example, the ITV Player etc have over Flash and forcing you into advertisements, some even with interactive connectivity outside of the Flash Player. It's very clever underhand tactics that get used these days that take advantage of the technology in the sense that the average user does not have a clue it's happening. Naivety and lack of knowledge is the key here

I would recommend that everyone at least installs Ghostery and Facebook Disconnect (if you have a FB account) Ironically this is built by a Google engineer but then they are in direct competition with each other. I would also install NoScript but this is more for advanced users that know what scripts to allow and what not to allow.

For more info see the following thread in particular the Browser and Email sections.
http://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic ... 10&t=36039

On a side note. Isn't it about time that this forum abandoned Adobe Flash considering the security implications and implemented the use of HTML5. Even YouTube have abandoned Flash. It wont be long now before it's eradicated from the web altogether in which case we will all be forced to change then if we want to continue embedding YouTube vids on the site or even view them directly on the likes of YouTube. Even worse, the forum code is so out of date that it don't give the option of HTML5 if Flash is disabled or not installed in ones browser

As soon as the TV companies find an alternative way of forcing us into advertisements for licensing reasons I believe that Flash video will be gone forever on the web.



https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2156491

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2156491

This will also make it far more simple for users to be able to embed video on the forum rather than use external links.



(:-})

[Virt]

Thanks for that bald_pig - that there is scary reading!

And there's me thinking that even with an anti-virus and anti-malware, I can be safe from "being tracked" with what I look at on Amazon, or Gumtree etc.

That'll maybe explain why I get bombarded withy sh1te half the time.

I've always thought it strange that say, I was looking at a short holiday, then a few days later, I get about 10 emails all with holiday crap on it.

But, many of the emails I can't explain. I mean, I haven't enquired about a new watch or Richard extension - yet I seem to get loads of those emails offering me cheap deals....

Well done for starting Carl on one

Regarding the emails, you probably won't be getting those from cookies. Do you use gmail? If so, here's how I keep track of who's sharing my email address;

my email address is (for example): abc@gmail.com

Google supports lovely little things called sub-addresses.

The theory is, I can supply my email address to a website (such as this fine forum) as abc+vtr1000@gmail.com

Then I can set up a filter on my gmail account to put those into a specific label, usually named off the website/company that has that email address... If I start receiving emails from other people, then I immediately delete my account and set the filter up to delete all incoming emails to that sub-address.

Oh also, if web security is your thing the only browser you should be using is Tor.

[VTRDark]

That is indeed a very handy feature that Google offer with their mail if you don't mind Goggle reading/logging all your mail in and out and using it to target more shite at you, but at least you can block that shite like I explained in my above post. Best to stay away from anything mainstream.

As for Tor I disagree. Yes it used to be good when it first came out, but since it has had so much media coverage and has links to underground sites for drug dealing, hiring mercenary's, selling stolen goods amongst other illegal and political activities etc. It has to be the most highly monitored browser in the world. You do know it was invented by the CIA right. Yes it uses a Proxy so your exact location is scrambled which slows you connection speed down somewhat, but a Proxy does not protect you within itself, you would also have to run through a VPN service too. If you think that government intelligence agencies around the world can't monitor what's going on within the Tor network then think again. Tor users are hiding behind a false sense of security.

(:-})