I buy and sell a lot of comic books on e-bay. I usually have something like a dozen sets for sale, and am bidding on another sixty or seventy* sets. This means a daily visit to the site.
The first time I visited with my old computer, I checked the little box that says “Keep me signed in on this computer,” then every time I would go back, I’d already be signed in without having to do anything.
With my new computer (bought about 6 months ago), Ebay refuses to remember me. I have to log on with both my username and password each time. Each time, I check the little “remember me” box, but it has no effect. If I close the window and come back, I must sign in again.
While browsing, it’ll sometimes forget that I’m signed in in the middle of a session, and I’ll have to reenter both username and password, and sometimes just the password. Sometimes I can go through bidding and listing screens dozens of times and never have to reenter anything.
I assume that there must be something different about either my browser or cookie settings that might be causing the problem, but I’m not computer savvy enough to figure out what it is.
My computer is a Compaq with an Intel Pentium 4 2.66 and an ATI Radeon 9600 with 512m ram, running Windows XP Home edition with the latest update.
What can I do to try to get eBay to remember me? I’m feeling like Homer in the “Who Shot Mr. Burns” episode.
Mine does the same thing. It used to keep me logged in more or less automatically, but I increased my security level settings for some reason, and now I have to re-log in most of the time. I think it has something to do with how your system is handling cookies.
I had this problem at work and found that the anti-spyware program that was running automatically deleted cookies as soon as you leave a web page. You might want to temporarily disable your startup programs just to test if one of them is deleting your cookies just to be “helpful”.
If you’re using MSIE, I can’t help you. And I wonder whether anyone else can, either. It doesn’t give you any discrimination about how cookies are handled, nor permit you to deny cookies from particular sites, while permitting them from others.
The wizards will most likely give you full details about the benefits of either Firefox or Opera, so here’s my list for Netscape (which I’ve been using for more than a decade, and so long as it continues to satisfy me, I’ll continue. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”)
There are several good, free alternatives. Netscape 7.1 (Mozilla/5.0) is what I use, but most of the Doper wizards seem to use/recommend Firefox (Mozilla). I believe there is also a free version of Opera, now. And there may be some other free browsers out there. By tomorrow, at latest, you should have several responses from people who really know this stuff. I suspect that all of the features I enjoy on Netscape are also in Firefox (and maybe more).
As for Netscape 7.x, it allows you to control cookies individually by site. I have mine set so that most sites - and all “new” ones (visiting for the first time) have to ask me each time they want to set or modify a cookie. Some sites I give approval, and they can set or modify their cookies without asking me again. Some other sites, I can set it so they can never set a cookie on my machine. As for most sites, I want to know every time they’re doing something.
Netscape will also store logins for you, and when you go to a site that you’ve stored the login for, give it an extra 30 seconds, and it will fill in all the blanks. All you have to do then is click to submit the info.
And despite my having been an eBayer since 1998, eBay is one of them, because I don’t totally trust them, even though I have half a zillion cookies from them. But I am set to automatically login. That is, Netscape saves my login information and fills it in for me. (That probably wouldn’t be a good idea for someone whose computer could be accessed by people they didn’t trust, or by kids [COLOR=Magenta]{who might just be messing around; kids can wreak a ton of havoc without ever intending to}.)[/COLOR]
I’m using IE 6.0. I don’t want to switch to something else. I don’t want to have to learn a new system or set up my favorites again, both of which would be a pain in the neck. Other than this one minor, but annoying, problem, it works well for me. If this is indeed the problem, I suppose I’ll just have to live with it.
I don’t know how to disable startup programs, but I don’t think I’ve ever installed a cookie blocker.
In MSIE: