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ROFL, that's a great explanation! If you get spywareblaster, that
will set alot! of the urls that use tracking/adware cookies in your security and
privacy, so they can't (for the most part - servedby.advertising.com gets
through no matter what I do) use a cookie. I also have my cookie handling
set up to accept first party, block third party cookies. That helps
too. Along with Spybot, ad-aware and my a/v.
Anymore, it seems like we have to spend more time d/l, updating, scanning,
etc. than actually just surfing and enjoying the
internet!
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--- Begin Message ---> Two dumb questions:
if you don't ever muck with the engine of your car, is it fair for someone to expect you to know the names of the various parts?
> (1) Is there a difference between cookies and spyware?
yes, although some cookies are considered spyware.
when you visit a website, it will often deposit specific files on your computer (called cookies) that contain information about you that is relevant to the site. then when you revisit the site, it reads the files it left on your computer to figure out who you are and possibly what you did when you previously visited the site. for example, if you do a search at mapquest, it will leave a cookie on your computer telling mapquest about the search. this way when you revisit mapquest it will know what searches you previously performed and will offer these to you under their "recent addresses searches". if you delete the mapquest cookies on your computer then it won't know about your previous searches. the problem is that other websites can also read the mapquest cookies or any other cookies. so if you go to another website, they might check for mapquest cookies to see where you are searching on mapquest so that they can, for example, target you with travel ads relevant to your mapquest searches. it's not a big deal, unless you value your privacy. in which case, you might want to delete your cookies every so often (email me off-list if you need help with this).
spyware can be programs running on your computer that are "spying" on you or cookies specifically used by various entities to track you. while the programs might be malicious and, at the extreme, used to steal account passwords (ie bank or credit card accounts), the cookie variants are mostly harmless and just monitoring what you are doing to get more info about who you are to sell to marketers. for example (names have been changed to protect the guilty):
1. website www.A.com uses advertising company JoBob to control the ads when you visit website www.A.com.
2. www.A.com also gives JoBob all the info they have about who you.
3. JoBob leaves a cookie on your computer when you visit www.A.com connecting you to the info JoBob now has about you.
4. you then visit www.B.com, which also uses JoBob for its advertising.
5. JoBob looks for their cookies and then can now connect the info they have about you from www.A.com with the info from www.B.com to get a better picture of you, your interests, and your habits.
6. you visit www.C.com which also uses JoBob.
7. JoBob now can target their ads presented to you because they have much more info about you. They can also sell this info to other marketers, or other companies.
8. you run an anti-spyware program which tells you that it found cookies from JoBob which it considers spyware.
9. you delete said cookies and regain your anonymity until you revisit www.A.com, when the process starts over.
at your service and always ready to procrastinate, stephen
Marianne Das wrote:Two dumb questions:
(1) Is there a difference between cookies and spyware?
(2) Is there any web site that can connect the filenames of spyware with their sources?
Marianne Das
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