A "cookie" is a piece of limited, internal information transmitted between server software and your browser. The cookie stores information so that a site will immediately recognizes you each time you visit. This permits the visited site to provide you with up-to-date accurate information.

You should have "cookies" enabled on your computer in order to utilize some of the more advanced features of some sites. If you do not have cookies enabled on your computer, then some sections of a Web site will not function properly if at all. For most people, cookies will be enabled by default.

One question an inexperienced computer user, who is unfamiliar with cookies, might ask is, "are cookies dangerous to my computer?" The answer is NO. A cookie is a simple piece of text. It is not a program, or a plug-in. It cannot be used as a virus, and it cannot access your hard drive. Your browser (not a programmer) can save cookie values to your hard disk if it needs to, but that is the limit of the effect on your system.

A cookie alone cannot read your hard drive to find out who you are, what your income is, or where you live. The only way that information could end up in a cookie is if you provide it to a site and that site saves it to a cookie. Therefore, basically speaking, cookies are not an invasion of one's privacy.

In order to enable/disable cookies, follow the steps below:

On Internet Explorer 5:

1. Click on the "Tools" button on the top Internet Explorer window.
2. Click on "Internet Options."
3. Click on the "Security" tab.
4. Click on the "Custom Level" button.
5. Scroll down to the cookies section. There are buttons there that will allow you to either enable or disable cookies.

On Netscape 4.7:

1. Click on the "Edit" button on the top Netscape Navigator window.
2. Click on "Preferences."
3. Click on the "Advanced" link on the left side.
4. Click on the "Accept All Cookies" or "Disable Cookies" link.

For other versions of the browsers, the process will be similar. For specific information pertaining to your browser, you may click the help button and perform a search on "cookie" and you should get instructions pertaining to the use of cookies relevant to your system.

The first time I looked at my Internet Explorer cookies and saw my username on them, I thought for sure I was open to catching a virus. But a normal text based cookie cannot be of any danger to your computer or spread any viruses. A file must be "executable" to enable a program in the file to do something malicious. Most cookies are not "executable" since they are stored as text files.

On a personal note, I run a "cookie clean-up" on a weekly basis by using my Norton SystemWorks. I keep only the sites which I visit on a daily basis, such as the forums, and anything else which requires a login to gain access. Cookies are the easiest way to enable me to recall my settings.