What are Browser Cookies?

Modified on 2025/07/28 18:04 by Adam — Categorized as: Uncategorized

A cookie is a very small amount of text that is sent from the website you are visiting to the Internet Browser that you are using. This text has information about parts of your visit that you might want to remember like a searched term or login information. This way then next time you visit that particular site, it will remember that information. An example is within the Surety mapping system, your last Legal search will be remembered within the Search panel.

There are different types of cookies such as "session-only" cookies that only last for the period of time that you have the browsing session open. There are also "permanent" cookies that last for multiple browsing sessions. In modern browsers, you can change the settings depending on what cookies you want enabled and which ones you want blocked.

How to clear your browser's stored cookies.¶

Sometimes an issue arises within a website that requires the deleting of the cookies to resolve the issue. Below are the steps to delete cookies within each of the main browsers.

Microsoft Edge¶

Click the Settings button icon in the top right corner of the browser window then click on "Delete Browsing History" in the drop-down.

Change the Time range to "All Time" and only select the "Cookies and other site data" before clicking "Clear now".

Once it is cleared, close all of your browser windows and reopen to complete the clear process.

Google Chrome¶

Open the home page and click on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner. older versions of chrome have gears or wrench icons

Click on Tools> Clear Browsing Data from the menu.

Check Cookies and other site and plug-in data and the timeframe you would like to delete data for.

Check any other desired options.

Click Clear Browsing data.

Mozilla Firefox¶

In version 29 or higher, open the homepage, click on the hamburger icon, and then click on the options gear icon.

Click on the Privacy Tab

Then click the "Remove individual cookies link.

At this point you can either remove cookies for individual sites or click the Remove all Cookies button to get rid of all cookies

Safari¶

Open Safari and select Safari from the top menu then click Preferences

Select the Privacy tab

Click "Remove all website Data". Agree to the confirmation prompt.

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