What are Browser Cookies?

Modified on 2018/10/12 22:33 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. Another example is if you are searching a movie website and you somehow indicate on the site that you like action films. Then next time you visit, the site will show you action films first.

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.

Clear your browser's stored cookies.¶

If you want your browser to delete the already saved cookies, then follow the steps for your particular browser.

Internet Explorer 9, 10, 11¶

Click the Tools (looks like a gear) icon in the top right corner of the browser window.

Then go to Safety>Delete Browsing History

If you want to manage individual cookies instead of deleting all of them, go to Tools> Internet Options> click the Privacy Tab and set which types of cookies are blocked.

Select the Cookies checkbox IE10 will say cookies and website data

Check or uncheck other options as desired.

Click Delete

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.

See Also: