
Why You Should Seriously Consider Clearing Your Cookies
By Movieguide® Contributor
We’ve all had this experience. You’re talking about going somewhere or searching on Google for a product, and suddenly you see ads everywhere for that place or thing — and it’s all because of cookies.
“Cookies are little bits of data that help websites remember who you are…and they can be good and bad,” said Rich DeMuro, radio host of “Rich on Tech” and author of 101 Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. “The same goes for your cache, which is similar to the cookie situation and also needs tending to. But believe it or not, you won’t be prompted to perform these recommended practices on your device, so you may be feeling understandably lost.”
“They can be good and bad,” said DeMuro. “Cookies help you stay logged into a website so you don’t have to log in over and over, but they can also track you from site to site.”
Essential cookies are needed for a website to function properly. They don’t require user consent. Nonessential/third-party cookies do require consent. A website will still function correctly without them.
These nonessential cookies are what What is My Browser says create privacy/identity issues. They are used to track your behavior and target you with ads you’re likely to look at.
But you might want to consider clearing those cookies. Here are a few are two of the benefits, according to Reader’s Digest and DeMuro:
To protect your privacy. Often created by advertising networks, search engine companies, device manufacturers and social media giants, nonessential cookies are used to track you online or show you ads based on your searching or browsing topics and habits. But how much do you want these tech companies to know about you and your likes and dislikes? And what if a site that keeps your sensitive information automatically loaded suffers a data breach? “My recommendation is to block or disable third-party cookies,” says DeMuro. “This means that sites aren’t able to track you as easily because it keeps them from being able to trade some information about you.”
To fix a website “bug.” Sometimes sites don’t load properly, have login issues or may have display glitches (“bugs”) that cause them to freeze or close unexpectedly. Clearing your cookies can give you a clean slate on websites, free up storage and enhance your device’s overall performance. This is especially advantageous for older phones with limited memory and storage capacity.
On websites on mobile devices and computers, you can go into your browser settings and click clear cookies, which can usually be found under or by the History button.
For an iPhone, first go to Settings, then Safari, then Clear History and Website Data.
Select Clear History and Data when it appears.
If you want to block cookies from there on out, you can, but you only have the option to block all cookies, rather than just third-party cookies. So some web pages may not work correctly.
To block all cookies, go to Settings. Then click Safari, then Advanced. Then, turn on Block All Cookies. And you’re done.
For Android phones, open your Google Chrome browser.
Tap the menu bar (three vertical dots) on the top right corner of the screen. Then, select History, then Clear Browsing Data.
Now you can check the box next to the things you want to delete — Browsing History, Cookies and Site Data and/or Cached Images and Files.
Select the triangle next to Time Range to see the time frame you want to delete — from The Last Hour to All Time.
Then, select Clear Data at the bottom of the screen.
Unlike iPhones, Androids allow you to block just third-party cookies.
To block website cookies in Chrome on Androids, click the menu bar, then Settings, then Site Settings.
Tap Third-Party Cookies and then Block Third-Party Cookies.
Now, when you’re done with the cookies, you might want to work on your cache.
“Cache is storage of the sites you’ve been to,” said DeMuro, “so their site loads faster the next time you visit, whether it’s their logo, photos or other essential information on a page.”
But all of these little bits of information can take up a lot of space, Rebecca Herold, CEO of Privacy & Security Brainiacs said.
To clear your iPhone cache, go to Settings and click Safari, then Clear History. Just click Confirm when Clear History and Data come up.
For Androids, Open Chrome and tap the menu bar. Select Settings and then Privacy and Security.
Then select Clear browsing data, then Cached Images and Files.
To clear app caches on Androids, find Settings, then click Apps. From there select an individual app, then select storage. If the app has an option to clear the cache, it will have a Clear Cache button.
Cyber News recommends clearing your cache and cookies at least once per month.
Movieguide® previously reported that Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts, which replaces third-party cookies, invades users’ privacy:
The tech [FLoC] works to sort users into groups based on their behavior. Advertisers can then target those groups instead of individual people. Privacy advocates argue that, while it’s better than the third-party cookie situation, FLoC IDs could still be bad for consumers, containing potentially sensitive information as well as providing another data point that lets advertisers individually identify you.
Although FLoC is in its testing phase, DuckDuckGo expressed its concern in a recent blog post.
“With FLoC, by simply browsing the web, you are automatically placed into a group based on your browsing history (‘cohort’),” the post reads. “Websites you visit will immediately be able to access this group FLoC ID and use it to target ads or content at you. It’s like walking into a store where they already know all about you! In addition, while FLoC is purported to be more private because it is a group, combined with your IP address (which also gets automatically sent to websites) you can continue to be tracked easily as an individual.”