After a longtime hiatus from ebay, I've been trying to list a few items. First I needed to send a few images to my honesty holding pen. SURPRISE!! Suddenly the site wants to set cookies about 16-21 times for every page. It certainly gets in the way of doing business. I have yet to complain bitterly to the powers that be at Honesty, but I doubt it would have any effect, or that I would be the first.
My question to you, gentle readers, is if you can recommend another image hosting site that's not so obsessed with tracking my movements. I really have nothing to hide, but I get enough spam email as it is. I haven't actually tried to launch an auction yet, and the cookie mayhem may abate while you are engaged in the lister, but I have no reason to suspect that's the case.
Have been really happy with Honesty up to now, but I thinketh they suck, at this point.
posted on November 29, 2000 10:07:37 AM
My Netscape browser has 3 different settings:
1 - Accept all cookies
2 - Accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server
3 - Disable cookies
I usually have it set to "disable," but to accomplish specific tasks, like using a shopping cart or posting at AW, I re-set it to #2. I never set it to #1; the only purpose I can see for that is to allow spyware cookies like doubleclick onto my computer. (I also have the "Window Washer" program -- that deletes cookies and clears the cache among other things -- installed on my computer, and I usually run it before I shut down.)
Hmm! Just recently, when I've been browsing the listings at eBay, it's seemed like some auction pages take forever to load. I usually assume the hang-up is a large picture that the seller's included, but after a minute or so I get impatient and hit the "back" button. Then for one listing I instead hit "stop," thinking, "Screw the picture, maybe I can at least read the description." To my surprise, the picture was there, everything appeared to be loaded except for the "Honesty" counter. I've started hitting "stop" instead of "back" now when I encounter this problem and it invariably is an auction with an Honesty counter. Could this slow loading of auction pages be related to Honesty cookies?
posted on November 29, 2000 02:48:44 PM
I solved the cookie problem by downloading a program called Cookie Pal....it is GREAT!!. I used the free download and like it so well, I paid the 15 bucks for the registration. It has a great easy to use filtering system among other things. Well worth it, I am no longer plagued by all those da___nd cookies. If I decide to accept one, I can move it from the rejected to the accepted side and then back when I am done. This is very handy for the sites that MAKE you accept one before you get in....other than that, it runs in the background and does not annoy you with cookie screens unless you choose for it to.
http://www.kburra.com/order.html
posted on November 29, 2000 07:34:02 PM
Freddy: Perhaps you have no problems. But AW tries to load a cookie if a bidder looks at the auction page. AW is not alone. Many free services do this.
posted on November 29, 2000 11:28:59 PM
As an old Dos'er, I decided to semi-automate the solution. I use Netscape, even though it's owned by AOL, whose largest stake in shares is held by Microsoft.
In one of the Netscape folders under each e-mail name is a file called cookies.txt. Delete this file and all cookies are gone and the next time that you start Netscape, it will create a new, blank cookies.txt. Swell!
At first, I just edited the autoexec.bat file that so that it now read:
@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST C:\PROGRA~1\NETSCAPE\USERS\BORILLAR\COOKIES.TXT DEL C:\PROGRA~1\NETSCAPE\USERS\BORILLAR\COOKIES.TXT
That meant that everytime I booted up my PC, the old cookies.txt file would be deleted with all of the cookies.
Now, with being a member of AW and PayPal, and a bunch of other places, I've grown fond of logging onto a web site and they already know my name via a cookie set in my text file.
So, I had to come up with a different idea. What I did was first manually delete the cookies.txt file. Then I started up my Netscape and went directly from one web site to another of those cookies that I did want to keep. I closed the browser. Now I went to the Borillar folder and copy and pasted the cookies.txt and called it cookies.old. Then, I created a BATch file with NotePAD thusly:
@ECHO OFF
DELETE COOKIES.TXT
COPY COOKIES.OLD COOKIES.TXT
:END
Then I made a program icon for it. So now, when I boot up, I still have it automatically delete the cookies.txt file. But now I can do it anytime as well and when I use the icon, it deletes the cookies.txt file and then copies cookies.old and renames it cookies.txt.
Confused? Well, basically, I erase the cookies.txt file and replace it with a copy that has the cookies that I want to keep in it. Complicated? Well, you did ask for help!
posted on November 30, 2000 12:27:35 AM
I set cookies.txt to "read only" and took care of that problem, then set it to accept all cookies. Works for me!
