How to Delete Cookies

Cookies are text files that are automatically downloaded to your hard drive by Web sites to make Web browsing easier. If you have security concerns or feel the cookies are taking up too much space, you may want to delete them.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Cookies From Microsoft Internet Explorer

1. Close Microsoft Internet Explorer.

2. Search your hard drive for a folder labeled "Cookies."

3. Open the folder.

4. Note the list of text files with names of the form "user@sitename." These are cookies.

5. Select the cookies you want to delete (you may want to keep the ones from sites you visit often).

6. Press the Delete key to delete the selected cookies.

Cookies From Netscape Communicator

7. Close Netscape Communicator.

8. Search your hard drive for a file labeled "cookies.txt." This file contains all the cookies that Netscape has downloaded.

9. Select the cookies file.

10. Press the Delete key to delete the Netscape cookies.

Tips & Warnings

• Unless you adjust your Netscape settings to reject cookies, Netscape will establish a new cookies.txt file as soon as you start browsing again.
• Some sites require cookies to function properly. If you delete cookies, you may have to re-register with some sites.
• You may notice difficulty in browsing some sites after you delete cookies.

Who Can Help:

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on 8/8/2006 It's well worth deleting cookies as they seem to act as a breeding ground for spyware, which can be really problematic in some cases. The easiest way to find them is to search for *@*.txt using the Windows search - from there you can just delete them. You could also try using Mozilla Firefox, which can be set to automatically delete cookies and other personal information after each web session.