Disabling Cookies?

In terms of security, whats your take on disabling cookies? Pros and Cons.

If you block all cookies your box will be really secure agaist spy/adware and other unwanted problems getting on your PC, but unfortunatly there are a lot of sites around that require cookies to not blocked in order to work properly. Like this one.

There are happy mediums when dealing with setting levels for cookies.

Explain these mediums you talk about. I think your talking about High, Medium High, Medium,etc. I bypassed those settings because I dont know what Frist party cookies are and how they differ from Third party cookies.

A first-party cookie either originates on or is sent to the Web site you are currently viewing. These cookies are commonly used to store information, such as your preferences when visiting that site.

A third-party cookie either originates on or is sent to a Web site different from the one you are currently viewing. Third-party Web sites usually provide some content on the Web site you are viewing. For example, many sites use advertising from third-party Web sites and those third-party Web sites may use cookies. A common use for this type of cookie is to track your Web page use for advertising or other marketing purposes. Third-party cookies can either be persistent or temporary.

info from
http://www.wats.ca/resources/cookies/23

OK......It depends on your software, but you are safer to block persistent cookies. This is stuff that remains on your box.

I use a (free) product from BillPstudios called "WinPatrol", this has an excellent "cookie" manager..........sorry, I do not have the link, you will have to google for it :)

There are a number of cookie management progs around......many are free........ideally they accept the cookie then delete it.......this allows stuff to work, but does not permit any subsequent use of the cookie.

You have to be careful with some sites, as the cookie may contain logon/user /password info.....I consider that to be sufficient of a security compromise to ignore the site entirely!

Hope this helps

ideally it would be best to block all cookies and then enable just what u need to use the sites u usually visit.

some of the sites that put cookies on ur system actually work just as well with cookies disabled. mainly the ones that will not work well would be the ones that require a login. so like for antionline, if u r only reading and not posting then it would make sense not enable cookies. if u trust the site then cookies would not be a problem.

So bascially it all depends on how much protection u want and what privacy u are willing to forego for added features.