…and I have ad-aware and everything, is there a way to stop them from entering my comp without me having to crank up the security from medium-high to higher still?
Fire fox has settings to allow or disallow cookies on a per website basis. I don’t think that IE has this but it might.
If they are always coming from the same domain, you can block IE from accepting cookies from that domain. For example, if you don’t want any more cookies from ads.doubleclick.net, you can tell IE not to accept cookies from doubleclick.net. To do so in Internet Explorer 6:
[ol]
[li]Select “Internet Options” from the “Tools” menu.[/li][li]Click on the “Privacy” tab.[/li][li]Click on the “Edit” button in the box labled “Web Sites.”[/li][li]Type the name of the offending domain (for example, ads.doubleclick.net) in the box titled “Address of Web Site.”[/li][li]Click the “Block” button.[/li][li]Click the “OK” button.[/li][li]Click the other “OK” button.[/li][/ol]
Lol, by some weird stroke of luck doubleclick.net was in fact one of the intruding cookies. That’s worked for that one, but what about ones that are in my cookie folders?
In IE6, select Tools, Internet Options, the Privacy Tab, Advanced…, and select the radio button to Block Third Party Cookies. That will prevent almost all of the tracker cookies. The ones you’ve already got, of course, you’ll have to delete, or let AdAware or Spybot S&D delete for you.
You could also buy the full version of AdAware so it works in real time…
SpywareBlaster works really well to block the crap before it hits your computer. Ad-Aware can work cleanup for anything that may slip by because you haven’t updated.
Are they any good? They keep coming out with these new brands, and you just don’t know how they’ll taste, but you have to buy a big package of them just to sample them and…
What?
Ooooooooooh…nevermind…
As I’ve explained, there’s no need to buy some additional package, or load down your machine with more freeware. Choosing the right options in IE6 will take care of the problem for free, and without any additional overhead. My AdAware and Spybot S&D haven’t found any tracking cookies in months.
After the recent security lapses at major “secure” sites such as Citibank, which involved keyloggers and other malicious code being installed in home computers via a huge hole in IE, I decided to get serious.
Mind you, I already have a 3rd party firewall and anti-virus, and I run AdAware, and clear out many files manually every time I come offline.
So I installed GhostSurf. It ain’t free, but if you do your banking, stock trading, bill paying and such online, as I do, it’s worth it.
GhostSurf discovered a keylogger on my machine which had eluded AdAware and McAfee. God knows how long it had been recording every keystroke I made while online, including passwords and credit card numbers.
Freeware’s all well and good, but if you’re serious about security, I recommend going with a pro edition. You can find reviews of GhostSurf on ZD Net and PC World.