Three Tools That Make Cookies More Palatable
Some Internet cookies are helpful, some are harmful. These three tools help you distinguish friend from foe.Dennis O'Reilly, PCWorld.com
Cookies, those little text files that store information about you and your Web-browsing patterns deep in your hard drive, strike fear in the hearts of Web denizens worried about privacy. (They even make fictional mob boss Tony Soprano nervous.) Often cookies make your browsing experience smoother and more personal. For example, cookies allow you to jump to a New York Times online article without having to log in each time you visit, and they allow an online shopping cart to remember the items you have selected for purchase. But other cookies are used to spy on your browsing habits and feed information about you to marketers. A cookie-management program can help you sort the good cookies from the ones that leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Some of these programs use pop-up alert windows that let you accept or reject cookies on a case-by-case basis as they arrive. Others let you easily delete the browser's cookie files after the fact. We'll look at three products in the former category here; check out our other review for our take on three browser-cleanup utilities.
We tested all products using Internet Explorer 5.5, Netscape Communicator 4.7, and Netscape 6.0. Versions 4.0 and 5.0 of Opera, another popular browser, already include excellent built-in cookie-management utilities.
Cookie Crusher 2.6b: Simple but Effective
The Limit Software's $15 Cookie Crusher 2.6b shareware utility may not offer the most polished interface, but it does a good job alerting you to cookies and helping you decide what to do with them. The alert dialog box identifies the cookie's sender, file name, and expiration date; it also gives you the option of accepting or rejecting all cookies from a specific server or any of the Internet domains that server hosts.
Cookie Crusher also identifies the type of cookie: Site Tracking, Advertisement, Shopping Cart, or "Unknown." You can accept one kind of cookie from a site, such as a shopping-cart cookie, and reject another, such as a site-tracking cookie. Cookie Crusher also displays a list of cookies already stored on your hard drive and allows you to delete them easily.
As other cookie-blocking programs do, Cookie Crusher requires you to change your browser's setting from the default (which accepts all cookies) to the setting that prompts you before accepting cookies. The program's on-screen manual provides instructions for making this adjustment, but they aren't particularly easy to follow. Rival programs such as Cookie Pal 1.5e and Norton Internet Security 2001 make the adjustment automatically during installation.
Cookie Pal 1.5e: The Icon Makes the Difference
Kookaburra Software's $15 Cookie Pal 1.5e, also a shareware title, matches Cookie Crusher feature for feature, but one extra detail stands out: Its funky cookie-creature icon in your taskbar lets you know with a subtle change of expression whether your browser is being monitored and when a cookie you previously accepted or rejected makes another attempt to download.
It may not seem like much, but the little cookie dude makes browsing easier by providing extra information without using a pop-up window or requiring you to dig into the program's activity log. Another nice feature is the program's ability to accept only cookies that will expire when you close your browser, so the files won't accumulate on your hard drive.
Cookie Pal's Session window provides all the information that Cookie Crusher displays, except for the type of cookie (site tracking, advertisement, and so forth), so you don't always know which cookies you should accept and which you should turn down.
Norton Internet Security 2001: A Broader Solution
Cookies are only one of the dangers you face on the Internet. For $70, Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2001 offers a complete security infrastructure by combining cookie management with a firewall, an antivirus scanner, and an ad blocker. (Note that Web ads are the source of most cookies.) For an extra $10, Internet Security 2001 Family Edition adds a filter that allows parents to block Internet content they consider inappropriate for their children.
Norton's cookie-management tool is simple and effective. In its default setting, Norton allows all cookies, but after you change the preference to Prompt me each time, you'll see the Cookie Rule Assistant whenever you encounter a new cookie. You can choose to accept or reject a single cookie or all cookies from the domain or site.
Even if the program is set to accept all cookies, Norton still enables another utility that will ask you for permission before allowing your browser to disclose your e-mail address and the address of the site you last visited when you submit confidential information in a Web form. You can edit your list of accepted cookies, and Norton's Event Log provides a record of all your Internet activity, including the cookies you have blocked and allowed.
If you're looking for a simple, on-the-fly cookie manager, both Cookie Crusher and Cookie Pal fill the bill, although Cookie Pal's expressive system-tray icon gives it a slight edge. But if you haven't yet armed your PC against other Internet dangers--especially viruses and hackers--opt for the stem-to-stern protection that Norton Internet Security 2001 provides.