Optimize PC|Windows Computer Tips and Resources

On the internet, cookies are a way of life — love them or loathe them, they are a required component of day-to-day use of the ‘internets’. While there are many misconceptions about cookies, namely that they’re evil or that they may damage your PC, even some of the people who know better just like to remove their cookies from time to time. However, this can be problematic for those who use websites that require cookies to maintain their login status, especially if they use those websites frequently. For instance, Gmail, Last.fm, eBay, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace all utilize cookies, and if you’re visiting these websites quite a bit, the last thing you want to have to do is type in your username and password multiple times per day. So, how can you delete cookies that you do not need, while saving those that you do need?

One way to do this, that is both easy and free, is to use CCleaner. CCleaner is a free PC cleaning utility that wipes cookies, temporary internet files, cache files, and saved form data for multiple web browsers. In fact, in a single run, you can clean your internet browsing histories for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, and Safari.

Now, in order to for you to save important cookies, you’ll need to rely on CCleaner alone to clean your internet browsing history, you will not be able to remove temporary internet files from the web browser directly.

The way that CCleaner helps you to keep your important cookies is due to a feature that it has — it allows you to pick and choose the cookies that you want to keep when you’re cleaning your web browsing history.

I’ll give you a rundown on how to implement this cookie-saving feature:

Step 1: Download CCleaner
Step 2: Install CCleaner and open the application. I believe it automatically opts you in to a browser toolbar (Yahoo, I think), so unless you want the Yahoo Toolbar, un-select this option during installation.
Step 3: On the bottom left-hand side, click on ‘Options’:

Step 4: On the next screen, choose ‘Cookies’:

Step 5: In the middle section, you’ll see the ‘Cookies to Delete’ and the ‘Cookies to Keep’ sections:

Select the cookie(s) that you want to keep in the ‘Cookies to Delete’ box, and then press the right-arrow button to move those cookies to the ‘Cookies to Keep’ box.

That’s it!

There are two things that you should know here:

1. In order to save the cookies, they must currently be set in your web browser. So, in order to set this up, you’ll have to visit, and log into, all of your favorite websites that require cookie logins.
2. This trick will not allow you to save cookies beyond their sessions’ expiration time. Most cookies have built-in expiration dates, and these can range from a few hours to a few weeks, months, or even years. A lot of websites, though, limit login sessions to a few days to a couple of weeks. This means that, even if you save these cookies with this method, that you’ll have to login again once the session expires.

While cookies are a vitally important part of the internet, there are situations where you might want to clear your cookies from time to time. Using this tutorial, you can still enjoy the relative (ly weak) privacy that removing your cookies can give you, while not having to deal with the hassles of removing cookies that you need for the websites that you visit most.

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