Frequently Asked Questions
Questions and answers about cookies and the CookiePanel
- What are third party cookies?
- Third party cookies (aka foreign cookies) are cookies that are set by a banner ad
or something else in a web page that comes from an outside company. Many web site owners
receive money for allowing advertising companies to put banner ads on their pages.
- I set my browser to accept only cookies from the originating site, but I'm still seeing cookies from
web sites I've never been to. Why?
- These days, most web browsers have a way to block third party cookies. So, advertisers
have found ways to get around that. First, many web sites allow pop-up ads to come from their
pages. Pop-up ads originate from some other web site, but since they are actually normal web pages
(that happen to contain nothing but advertising), there's no way for your browser to know the
difference. Also, many banner advertising companies have found ways to get around
third-party cookie blocking. Here's how it typically works. You visit your favorite news site.
It takes a few seconds to load. During that time, it redirects you to a page at the advertising company
which sets the cookie. That site in turn redirects you back to the news site. Since your browser
did very briefly visit that company's web site, there's no way for your web browser to know you didn't
intend to visit that site.
- Do cookies cause spyware or viruses?
- No. Cookies don't contain any computer code. They contain only a small amount of information,
usually about you or places you visited on the web. They can't actually do anything.
- Can a web site get my phone number or other personal information from a cookie?
- Basically, no. However, if you visit a web site and enter your personal information into
the web page, it might put that information into a cookie. The much more likely scenario is that
if you give your personal information to an unreputable company, either online or in person, they
might sell your information to advertisers and others. This scenario has nothing to do with cookies
and isn't even dependant on using the internet. Anybody who is not trustworthy who has your
personal information might give or sell it to somebody else, regardless of how you gave them the
information.
- I went into the built-in cookie preferences window and set it to block cookies (or allow them), but
the CookiePanel still shows the old setting.
- Your settings will still take effect. Next time a new cookie comes in or you change the sort on the
CookiePanel, it will catch up. If you change the setting in the CookiePanel, your changes will take
effect immediately. This may be addressed in a future version of the CookiePanel.
- Why do some of my cookies show as having been created more recently than they actually were?
- Firefox does not keep track of the creation dates of cookies except when the CookiePanel is both
installed and open. When the CookiePanel is first installed, any cookies that were there before
will show up as brand new, as though they were set the moment the CookiePanel was installed. Similarly,
if you close the CookiePanel for a while and then open it, any cookies that were set while it was
closed will show up as having been set at the moment you reopened the CookiePanel. This feature is
designed to give you a feel for how many cookies have been on your computer for a particularly long time,
but it may not tell you exactly when they were set. This may be improved in a future version of the
CookiePanel.