Shutting Out Adware/Spyware? (IE 6.0)

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I hope I’ve simply forgotten to do something basic, like adjust a setting option, but despite installing Panda and Windows Defender and Ad-Aware, I’m still getting a bunch of spyware every time I go out on the internet.

I run Panda after every foray out on the Web and it finds 6-12 pieces of sypware nearly every time. It’s as if my system is wide open.

According to Panda, the spyware appear in my Cookies file and have names like Yieldman, Advertising, Doubleclick, et al.

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.

Thank you.

Neal

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“Tracking Cookies” are not actually spyware, but can be used to watch your surfing habits. The reason for this is that, say, 20% of major websites have DoubleClick ads on them. By watching the details of the referring URL for those ads, and associating that with your cookie data, DoubleClick can know what you’re shopping for or reading about and therefore serve you a more targeted ad.

To block tracking cookies, take control of cookie management rather than relying on IE’s defaults. For a week you will have to tolerate incessant dialogs asking if certain sites are Allowed or Blocked from setting cookies. After that, you should have covered most of the major advertisers. Worth a try?

Tools > Internet Options…, Privacy tab, Advanced…

[X] Override Automatic cookie handling

First-party: Prompt for now (rather than Accept)
Third-party: BLOCK

[X] Always allow session cookies[/list]Hope this helps.

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Aha! That sounds like exactly what I was looking for.

Having an incessant dialog with every web site for a while certainly beats having my system gummed up every few minutes.

Thank you.

Neal

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I was so excited, I almost forgot to ask: Is there a similar series of steps to shut out cookies with Mozilla Firefox?

Thanks.

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Firefox is somewhat similar. There is no global “accept session cookies,” but you can convert all of a site’s cookies to session cookies. Try these settings:

Tools > Options…, Privacy section, Cookies tab

[X] Allow sites to set cookies

[X] for the originating site only

Keep cookies: ask me every time[/list]If there is a site that you want to remember your login, you must choose Allow rather than Allow for Session. Otherwise, of course, the cookie will be cleared between visits.

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Perfect.

Thank you again.

Neal

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