Posted by spoc on April 9, 2004, at 3:34:51
In reply to Silly Cookie ? 4 Dr. Bob and other tech smart ones, posted by noa on April 8, 2004, at 18:10:02
> ....My solution thus far has been to open the temp/cookies files, select all, and then use the control button and the mouse to unselect certain cookies. But this is also rather cumbersome, and not always accurate. There are often several cookies from the same site and I have a hard time knowing if I would need to keep all of them, or the most recent, or what. Plus sometimes I miss some and they get deleted with the others.>
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Hi noa, please put down your mouse and freeze! I found out the hard way awhile back that one should *never* delete temp files/cookies directly/individually from Windows Explorer or anywhere else you can get at them. This can cause damage to your computer. Those temp files aren't even really where they appear to be; what you see displayed in the listing is actually a concentrated mirror image of them where they *really* are, which is in widespread places. You obviously CAN get them to disappear from the temp folder, but other processes caused by this "far-removed" removal are set in motion. You've probably noticed other odd things as you were removing them manually, and that's why. Pretty intriguing, huh? Who sez this stuff is boring!I deleted temps as you are for years without *noticing* a problem from it -- but then again my computer IS now giving out, and who knows how many of my "daring" practices may have hastened that. Anyway, eventually I started going after a folder called "Content IE 5," and found huge *wads* of cookies from eons ago in there, and deleted them all. All heck broke loose with the operation of my PC, and I had to go on an odyssey to find out why. That's when I discovered in reputable techie forums and through system admin acquaintances that one should *never* manually remove cookies at all, much less the ominous ones I did. I still have Windows 98, but I see that with newer operating systems, it's been made even harder for owners to get into and manipulate these areas now.
As far as your objective of saving cookies selectively -- Dr. Bob, a couple others and myself ended up discussing the general issue in a recent Admin thread begun under the title "Where's the previous indicators box?" But that veers in a few directions, so I'll put two main thoughts here. First, despite what anyone says, I've noticed that performing a proper Internet Options temps removal at least does not cause me to lose most of the color-coding of my previously-read links (I posted about random losses, but realized they are due to my crummy computer's frequent crashes). I almost think that deleting temps may remove stored images of whole Internet site pages more so than it does whatever causes previously-read links to stay colored. Just guessing, better stop there. Anyway, the colors may not be AS useful to you as flags, but they're much better than nothing, and seem to stay a lot longer.
Second and more efficient thought: Although I feel very confident in stating that we can't selectively retain cookies (if we could, that would be a standard feature, as everyone would want a choice), I will defer to a couple of my favorite techie forums, linked below. There, you can get good answers pretty quickly. The first is a general computer tech site. The second is a security issues site, but that includes cookies and spyware. Right now it's down for software upgrades, for up to a few days.
Good luck! :- )
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> I like to delete temporary internet files and cookies fairly regularly. BUT, I don't want to erase my psychobabble cookies and the cookies from a couple other sites I visit frequently. Because, as you know, when the cookies are gone, I get the new tags on every single message, and it makes it cumbersome to scroll through messages for new ones.> .....> My question is this: Is there a way to get my computer to put certain cookies in a different folder from all the other cookies--a kind of 'special cookies and special temporary internet files" folder? That way I could keep the "special" ones and delete the rest more efficiently.
>
> Or any other suggestions?
>
> Thanks.
poster:spoc
thread:334235
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040307/msgs/334401.html