On Sunday 10 April 2005 06:29 pm, Trent Shipley wrote:
>
> It is not so much a computer problem as a contract problem.  The other
> party will not let you have a preview without a cookie, and that is not
> negotiable. You want to effectively deceive the  other party.

A contract?  I don't see how it is a contract.  If I had my browser set to 
accept all cookies without warning me, that means I agree to some sort of 
contract with every site I choose to visit.  And if they site does not 
tell me they are setting a cookie, does that mean they are deceiving me?  
Does that hold me to a contract that I don't know I have entered?

IANAL nor even a student of law but browser cookies just don't seem like 
an instrument for making a contract.

Right now, if I accept a cookie and then later wish I hadn't, I have to 
open the cookie manager to manually find and delete said cookie.  I just 
want an easier way to look at the site and then one-click delete the 
cookie.  Even just temporarily accepting the cookie but leaving a cookie 
check button on the status bar, like AdBlock does, would accomplish what 
I am looking for.

> Wouldn't the browser have to effectively accept the cookie to do this?

No, the browser happily shows the data for the cookie that the website is 
attempting to set.  Trouple is, more often than not, the cookie name and 
data is just a bunch of encrypted stuff that means nothing to me but 
obviously something to the website.

> The site will not let you see it unless you have a valid cookie, so you
> have to take it or walk away.

Not really.  Most sites still let you browse them even if you reject the 
cookies.  I do it all the time.

> The best that could be done is to put 
> this cookie and all from the site into a special cookie jar for
> potentially toxic cookies.  It would be a real pain to manage.

That is exactly what I want.

- Make a cookie buffer that retains the cookies from the site you are 
currently viewing.
- If you decide you don't want the cookies, dump the buffer.
- If you surf on to a new site, the cookies in the buffer get saved as if 
accepted and the current site cookies are now in the buffer.

That shouldn't be so hard to manage.  If I only knew how to write a 
Firefox addon.

> Also, if Mozilla had that sort of feature, it would just start an arms
> race as purveyors of mal- and mark-ware cookies tried to get registered
> on your browser.

Yea, I suppose it would.  But I don't stop fighting spam because the 
spammers keep getting smarter.

Unfortunately "cookie people" are getting smarter.  This is a new 
technology that hides cookie backups in the Macromedia Flash environment.

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160400801

(Another reason not to install or use flash(?))

I am not fantical about cookies.  They have very ligitimate uses.  I just 
want control of my internet experience.

Alan
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