I am often asked by friends if I should clear all my cookies, and what are they. Cookies are text files with small pieces of data — like a username and password — that are used to identify your computer as you use a computer network. Specific cookies known as HTTP cookies are used to identify specific users and improve your web browsing experience.

Cookies are useful for websites because it helps load items faster (like images) after you already visited that site. It is important to be able to manage cookies since websites use them to market to you. Remember though if you clear all cookies on the sites that autoload like this one, you will have to log in manually using a username and password.

I sometimes run Ccleaner and after that, I have to sign on, now I know why.
Can I turn off the cookies in Ccleaner somehow?

CCleaner is a great tools and very powerful when it comes to cleaning up lots and lots of stuff that bloats your device, but with all that power comes a great responsibility to manage exactly what it is clearing out, if not it will, and does, clear out everything.

However, all is not lost, you can train it, tell it, however you want to say it, to only clear the stuff you really want gone.

Here is their advice on how to deal with cookies and browser data, sometimes it is not the cookies that are the problem but that CCleaner also clears you browser history so that any sites you previously visited aren't remembered.

Clearing Cookies and Browser Data, or Not.

The problem of loosing login details when you clear cookies can be solved by maintaining a password vault which means you don't need to rely of cookies for all those needed login details.

I haven't used a cleaner for a while but might do so again. I know CCleaner is the one first thought of when going for a system and Registry cleaner and I have used it in the past. In later times though, I used PrivaZer instead because it cleaned some unwanted files out that CCleaner wouldn't.

It's a while ago now but I think they were to do with hidden browsing history files. Probably OK to have left them but just had a bee in my bonnet about them at the time and PrivaZer did the job.

PrivaZer hasn't been around as long as CCleaner but I believe it is gaining in popularity. Don't know if it will ever dominate the field but here is a comparison test. It's a long article. Maybe just jump to the final verdict (according to the tester) at the bottom of the page.

ljzsoft.com/privazer-vs-ccleaner/

caretaker wrote: I sometimes run Ccleaner and after that, I have to sign on, now I know why.
Can I turn off the cookies in Ccleaner somehow?

Yes, open Ccleaner, go to the bottom and click Options and then click Cookies, you will see a window with TWO arrows, the list on the LEFT side is all the Cookies on your PC, the list on the left will probably be empty,(KEEP)
So now all you have to do is select the sites you want to KEEP (such as this one) and click the arrow pointing left, then when you clear your cookies the KEEP ones remain on your pc and the pages that normally auto load will not require a login...hope this helps.

coldfeet wrote:

caretaker wrote: I sometimes run Ccleaner and after that, I have to sign on, now I know why.
Can I turn off the cookies in Ccleaner somehow?

Yes, open Ccleaner, go to the bottom and click Options and then click Cookies, you will see a window with TWO arrows, the list on the LEFT side is all the Cookies on your PC, the list on the left will probably be empty,(KEEP)
So now all you have to do is select the sites you want to KEEP (such as this one) and click the arrow pointing left, then when you clear your cookies the KEEP ones remain on your pc and the pages that normally auto load will not require a login...hope this helps.

Well I done what you said and hear I am, thanks.

Open the cookie tin and try one for yourself.

RichardA wrote: Open the cookie tin and try one for yourself.

I often wonder why when a sensible discussion is posted, someone will answer with a silly reply, such as the one above, is it supposed to be funny perhaps someone can enlighten me?

coldfeet wrote:

RichardA wrote: Open the cookie tin and try one for yourself.

I often wonder why when a sensible discussion is posted, someone will answer with a silly reply, such as the one above, is it supposed to be funny perhaps someone can enlighten me?

I felt my comment was light hearted rather than 'funny' and a relevant one which those of superior intellect would readily understand and appreciate....plus of course the question had actually been adequately answered more than once.....
Consider yourself 'enlightened' my friend.

There's an interesting browser extension called 'Lightbeam' (originally for Firefox but a version called 'Thunderbeam' is also available for Chrome based browsers). It gives a graphic representation of the sites visited and shows the number of trackers that latch into it. Probably builds to the number of cookies collected. The picture below is the result of a few hours browsing around the Internet. The circles are the sites visited. The triangles joined into them by lines are the trackers looking at you looking at the sites.