- Joined
- Sep 16, 2004
- Messages
- 1,145
- Location
- Leven, Fife / Northampton
- Car
- 2006 320 CDI Avantgarde . 1997 312d Sprinter
Hi All,
So this is a bit of a rant about cookies, those little files laying on your hard drive feeding advertising info back to the multinationals to "enhance your surfing pleasure".
Of late I have noticed AVG notifying me more and more often about the cookies resident on my hard drive, and as no one pays me to store these files, nor has ever asked me -- would I mind if I gave " anonymous" information about my viewing habits, I was starting to get a little peeved about being used.
Only yesterday, I went looking for a diagram of a mixer tap, just to see how it would come to bits to replace whatever seals inside were needed and today, plastered on everything I looked at were adverts from Screwfix with a constant stream of mixer taps, --kitchen,bath and sink on offer.
Ok enough is enough, I tracked down a list of the cookies on my system by just typing cookies in the search box ( Win7 ) and found a couple o nasties -according to google (ad.yieldmanager in particular, and also one from microsoft itself called atdmt. )
So then I did a little more research and found this website Network Advertising Initiative . This seemed to search my machine and come up with a total of 44 active cookies that I had not subscribed to and usefully gave me the opportunity of opting out of these and also many more that as yet had not found there way onto my machine and made their home there.
I guess like bacteria, there are many harmless cookies infesting our machines, but given the choice do you really want them??
Anyway, todays score was -- Steve 46 -- -- Cookies 0 -- will I sleep any easier tonight?, I doubt it.
Steve
So this is a bit of a rant about cookies, those little files laying on your hard drive feeding advertising info back to the multinationals to "enhance your surfing pleasure".
Of late I have noticed AVG notifying me more and more often about the cookies resident on my hard drive, and as no one pays me to store these files, nor has ever asked me -- would I mind if I gave " anonymous" information about my viewing habits, I was starting to get a little peeved about being used.
Only yesterday, I went looking for a diagram of a mixer tap, just to see how it would come to bits to replace whatever seals inside were needed and today, plastered on everything I looked at were adverts from Screwfix with a constant stream of mixer taps, --kitchen,bath and sink on offer.
Ok enough is enough, I tracked down a list of the cookies on my system by just typing cookies in the search box ( Win7 ) and found a couple o nasties -according to google (ad.yieldmanager in particular, and also one from microsoft itself called atdmt. )
So then I did a little more research and found this website Network Advertising Initiative . This seemed to search my machine and come up with a total of 44 active cookies that I had not subscribed to and usefully gave me the opportunity of opting out of these and also many more that as yet had not found there way onto my machine and made their home there.
I guess like bacteria, there are many harmless cookies infesting our machines, but given the choice do you really want them??
Anyway, todays score was -- Steve 46 -- -- Cookies 0 -- will I sleep any easier tonight?, I doubt it.
Steve
or get it to ask you each time if you want to accept it...
