# Is there a way to change the cookie format information?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 27, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928 "2003-10-27T23:28:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928/1 "2003-10-27T23:28:40Z")

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I’ve noticed that all the cookies stored on my PC are of the form:

myrealname/amazon.com.txt

I’m wondering where the sites that send these cookies get the ‘myrealname’ info from, and if there’s a way to change it? In other words, is there anything I can do on my computer that will mean the cookies look like this:

madeupname/amazon.com.txt

Note that this isn’t about preventing my PC from accepting cookies. I know how to do that.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928/2 "2003-10-27T23:33:01Z")

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You have to change your registered user name. It’s stored in the registry someplace. Use regedit and do a search for your name, and change it to whatever you want. Bear in mind, though, that the site doesn’t read this information to generate a cookie. I’ve written Perl and PHP scripts that handle cookies, and they only send the information. The cookie file is named locally on your system.

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**Author:** ![larsenmtl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d78d45/32.png) [@larsenmtl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/larsenmtl)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2003, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928/3 "2003-10-27T23:35:53Z")

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Assuming your using 2000 or XP:

Aren’t your cookies being stored in the cookies folder under your Windows user name?

For example: c:\documents and settings\LogonName\cookies\amazon.txt

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**Author:** ![Hauky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@Hauky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hauky)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2003, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-change-the-cookie-format-information/209928/4 "2003-10-28T00:10:55Z")

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The sites aren’t gettings your real name at all, that’s just Windows’/Internet Explorer’s way of naming the cookie files. For example, mine are all named “Brandon@site.txt”, because my Windows XP logon name is Brandon. This is to differentiate my cookies from, say, Sam’s cookies, assuming Sam is another logon name for my computer.