The Cookies That Wouldn't Leave!!!
by Gary Woods

Most of us are aware that a lot of websites place on your computer some things called cookies. These may or may not be malevolent depending on the firm that places those cookies on your computer. A lot of people empty out those cookies on a fairly regular basis so to combat that a New York company called United Virtualities has built a cookie replacement service it calls PIE (persistent identification element.) PIEs, which can not be easily removed, can restore deleted cookies and track your online behavior. And an even a bigger problem is that these elements can hold a lot more information than a cookie can.

So what can you do about PIEs? Well since they're Macromedia Flash based the first thing you can do is make sure you're running Flash Player 8. If not, you'll need to download it from www.macromedia.com/go/getFlashPlayer.

You can then use the Flash Player Settings Manager to control the storage of local shared objects, i.e. PIEs!!! The setting Manager is a Flash-based tool that runs on the Macromedia Website and changes local Flash Player settings.

For even more control, you can disable storage of shared objects altogether. On the Global Storage Settings Panel, move the slider bar all the way to the left to prohibit Websites from storing any information on your Hard Drive.

But the most important thing to do is keep your Anti-virus software up to date and have a personal firewall and anti-spyware activated.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910