Guidescope: Filtering Cookies

Filtering Cookies

What are Cookies?

Cookies are unique identifiers that Web servers place on your computer when you visit a site. (Web servers are Internet computers that send you Web page contents.) Web servers use cookies to identify you and tailor their content to you. Because cookies uniquely identify you, they are also used by Web servers to track your surfing behavior, often without your knowledge or consent. Web advertising companies that track your surfing use cookies.

How do I control cookies using Guidescope?

Here's the simplest way to control cookies with Guidescope:

When first installed, Guidescope doesn't block any cookies. The first step is to tell Guidescope to forbid all Web servers from placing cookies on your computer:

Using a text editor, create a file named cookie.ini in the directory where you installed the Guidescope software. (On Windows machines, the directory is typically C:\Program Files\Guidescope\). As soon as the file is there, Guidescope will block all cookies. All versions of the Guidescope software use the same cookie file name: cookie.ini.
Second, tell Guidescope what sites you want to be able to place cookies on your computer:

Using a text editor, add the domain names of the sites that you want to be able to place cookies on your computer to the cookie.ini file. Enter each domain name on a separate line. Only the sites you enter will be allowed to place cookies on your computer.

For example, if you want to allow www.mapsonus.com and www.nytimes.com to be able to place cookies on your computer, but no one else, then your cookie.ini file should contain two lines:

mapsonus.com
nytimes.com

If you want more sites to be allowed to place cookies on your computer, then add more lines to cookie.ini. You don't have to reboot or restart Guidescope after editing cookie.ini; it's read automatically.

Guidescope provides all of the powerful cookie control available in the Internet Junkbuster. For more information on compatibility with the Internet Junkbuster, click here.

Special limitations

To protect your privacy and maintain security, Guidescope does not block cookies or examine data streams associated with pages of Internet sites that use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), an option commonly used on order forms that collect personal information such as credit card numbers. Guidescope also does not block cookies that are set or sent using JavaScript.

Can't I control cookies using my browser?

Browsers typically provide some limited control over cookies. They usually allow you to:

Disable all cookies:
This provides privacy but prevents access to many sites that you might want to visit that require you to accept cookies.
Accept all cookies:
This provides you with no control over cookies on your computer.
Warn/prompt before accepting cookies:
This sounds good until you try it. If you do, then you will probably be overwhelmed dealing with all the requests to place cookies on your computer.

We found that these browser-provided controls didn't provide enough control to effectively manage cookies. We use the Guidescope cookie controls along with the "warn/prompt before" browser controls. That way, we can monitor the sites that we explicitly allow to place cookies on our computers and aren't bothered by other sites that try to.