Many of the webpages I check on a daily basis require login info- browser-based email, webpages of magazines and newspapers that I subscribe to, Amazon, Netflix, Snapfish, etc. Often the logout or signout button is the most miniscule link hidden or buried in some obscure area of the page. Do I really need to logout, and if so, isn’t it irresponsible of the webmaster to make it so hard for me to do so? My computer at work isn’t accessible by anyone but me, aside from the company IT department I suppose. What about at home?
The purpose of logging out is to prevent someone else from accessing your accounts on those webpages from your computer. If you’re the only one who uses the computer then it probably isn’t necessary, but if security is a concern then you can always manually delete the cookies – the small files that sites use to identify you – by browsing to C:\Windows\Cookies in Win9x or typing %userprofile%\cookies from the Run line in NT, 2K, or XP. If you’re using IE6 and you want to clear them all at once, go to Tools|Internet Options and hit Delete Cookies.
There are also several shareware programs which will automatically clear cookies or even shred them so that they’re harder to recover off the disk.