Tough Cookies

Cookies--short bits of information stored on your hard disk when you visit some Web sites--have a bad reputation: Because they can communicate information about your identity and preferences, it's feared that nefarious Webmasters can use them to violate your privacy. But they're also useful, allowing Web sites to remember your custom settings, preferences, or passwords. If you want to protect your privacy but retain some of the convenience cookies allow, Internet Explorer 5 lets you exercise discretion by creating a list of trusted Web sites from which you will accept cookies:

1. In IE5, choose Tools, Internet Options. Select the Security tab.
   
   
2. Choose the Trusted Sites icon and click the Sites button. Deselect the "Require Server verification..." check box, unless you want to limit your cookie-acceptance to secure transaction servers only.
   
   
3. Enter the URLs of the sites that you will accept cookies from. For instance, if you buy books at Amazon.com, enter http://www.amazon.com/ and click Add. Click OK when you're through defining trusted sites.
   
   
4. To stop accepting cookies from Web sites outside of the Trusted Zone, reselect the Internet icon on the Securities tab of the Internet Options dialog, click the Custom Levels button and scroll down to the Cookies section. Under "Allow cookies that are stored on your computer" click either the Disable or the Prompt button, depending upon your preference. (The former rejects all cookies; the latter lets you decide each time--which can get annoying quickly.) Here's a good strategy: To gain some privacy and avoid being constantly prompted, choose Disable in this section and choose Enable in the "Allow per-session cookies" section. This allows you to visit sites that insist on sending you a cookie without storing the information on your hard disk. When you close Internet Explorer, the cookie information disappears.