A cookie is a small amount of information used by some web sites. A web site that sets cookies will ask your browser to place one or more cookies on your hard disk when you visit the site. Later, when you return to the site, your browser sends back the cookies that belong to the site.
Before loading a web page that uses cookies, your browser handles the page's cookies by doing two things:
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You can specify how cookies should be handled by setting your cookie preferences and by using the Cookie Manager.
To change your cookie preferences:
Disable cookies: Choose this to refuse all cookies.
To control cookies on a site-by-site basis:
When you are warned (while browsing) that a web site is requesting to set a cookie, you can click Yes to allow or No to deny the cookie. You can also select the option for your browser to "Remember this decision."
If you select "Remember this decision," you will not be warned the next time that site tries to set or modify a cookie, and your "yes" or "no" response will still be in effect.
If you wish to change a remembered response later, use Cookie Manager to edit your list of automatically stored cookies.
To stop automatically accepting cookies from a site:
To view detailed information about cookies:
Item | Explanation |
Name | This is the name assigned to the cookie by its originator. |
Information | This string of characters is the information a web site tracks for you. It might contain a user key or name by which you are identified to the web site, information about your interests, and so forth. |
Host or Domain | This item tells you whether the cookie is a host cookie or a domain cookie. A host cookie is sent back, during subsequent visits, only to the server that set it. A server is a computer on the Internet. A web site resides on one or more servers. A domain cookie is sent back to any site that's in the same domain as the site that set it. A site's domain is the part of its URL that contains the name of an organization, business, or school---such as netscape.com or washington.org. |
Path | This is the file pathway. If a cookie comes from a particular part of a web site, instead of the main page, a path is given. |
Server Secure | This indicates whether the cookie was sent over a secure server. If a cookie is secure, it will only be sent over a secure (https) connection. Before sending a secure cookie, your browser checks the connection and will not send if the connection is not secure. |
Expires | This is the date and time at which the cookie is deactivated. The browser regularly removes expired cookies from your computer. |
Important: To remove cookies, follow the steps in this section. Do not try to edit the cookies file on your computer.
To remove one or more cookies from your computer:
You can also choose to prevent the removed cookies from being re-accepted later.
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Many web sites require you to type a user name and password before you can enter the site. For instance, personalized pages and web sites containing your financial information require you to log in.
The user name and password you use at a particular site can be read by the site's administrator. If this concerns you, you may wish to use a different password at every site with which you register. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remember every single password you've ever used.
Password Manager can help you by storing your user names and passwords on your computer's hard disk, and entering them for you automatically when you visit such sites.
In this section: Using Password Manager to Remember User Names and Passwords Entering User Names and Passwords Automatically |
When you enter your user name and password at a web site a dialog box appears asking, "Do you want Password Manager to remember this logon?" You can choose the following options:
Password Manager saves your user names and passwords on your own computer in a file that's difficult, but not impossible, for an intruder to read. See Encrypting Stored Sensitive Information for information on protecting your stored user names and passwords with encryption technology.
If you use Password Manager to remember your user name and password for a web site, the next time you visit the site, Password Manager will automatically fill in your user name and password on the site's log in screen.
Password Manager is on by default. To turn it off:
To see a list of the user names and passwords you have stored:
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Many web pages contain forms for you to fill outorder forms for online shopping, information databases, and so forth.
Form Manager can save the personal data you need to enter when you fill out a form, by storing such information as your name, address, phone, credit card numbers, and so forth. Then, when a web site presents you with a form, Form Manager can fill it out automatically.
In this section: Filling Out Forms Automatically Form Manager's Automatic Notification Feature What Happens If I Provide Personal Information to a Web Site? |
When you fill out an online form, Form Manager normally detects the form and gives you an opportunity to save the personal data you entered into the form. Soon, Form Manager will have enough data to begin filling out forms automatically.
There are two ways to save personal data:
Form Manager stores your personal data on your own computer in a file that's difficult, but not impossible, for an intruder to read. See Encrypting Stored Sensitive Information for information on protecting your information with encryption technology.
To examine or edit personal data that Form Manager has saved:
The Form Manager dialog box appears. Click the subcategories on the left to view or edit the corresponding data. To view subcategories that aren't visible, double-click a category to expand the list.
To fill out an online form automatically:
Note that the Prefill Form menu item won't be accessible if the Form Manager hasn't yet stored any relevant information.
After you choose Prefill Form, you see a Prefill Form window that shows exactly what information Form Manager is about to fill in. To prevent a field from being filled in automatically, deselect the checkbox beside it. To prevent any fields from being filled in automatically, click Cancel.
If you don't want to verify information every time you prefill a particular form, deselect the Prefill Form window option labeled "Bypass this screen when prefilling this form in the future".
Click OK to confirm your choices and fill in the form as you have specified.
Form Manager is set to prompt you to save information whenever it detects that you have filled out an online form. To stop these messages from appearing on your screen:
If you provide personal information such as your name, phone number, or email address to a web site, it is free to store that information in its database and use it later. A web site might use this information to improve its service to you or target advertising to your interests. A web site could sell the information it has gathered to other companies.
One way to find out how a web site uses the information it gathers is to check its privacy policy.
Before providing personal information on an online form, you must decide whether or not you trust the companyjust as you judge whether or not you trust a catalog company before you provide your credit card number on the company's order form.
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If you use Password Manager or Form Manager to save passwords and personal data, then this sensitive information is stored on your computer in a file that's difficult, but not impossible, for an intruder to read.
If you are not concerned about unauthorized use of your computer, you may not need further security. However, if your computer is in an area where unauthorized people have access to it, it's possible for a determined person to read the file containing your sensitive information.
For a greater degree of security, you may want to protect the file with encryption. Encryption makes it nearly impossible for an unauthorized person to view your stored sensitive information.
In this section: Encrypting Stored Sensitive Information |
To turn on encryption for your stored sensitive information:
If you choose to encrypt your stored sensitive information, you'll need a master password. With encryption selected, you'll be asked for your master password at least once during a browser session in which you access any of your stored sensitive information.
If you choose encryption, but don't already have a master password, you'll be prompted to create one the first time you try to save or retrieve your sensitive information.
If your master password has not previously been set, you can set it yourself:
Make sure your new password is difficult to guess. For some guidelines, see the online document Choosing a Good Password.
To change your master password:
Make sure your new password is difficult to guess. For some guidelines, see the online document Choosing a Good Password.
Normally, you are asked for your master password once during each browser session during which you access any of your stored sensitive information. However, you can log out of your master password so that it must be entered again before any sensitive information can be stored or retrieved. This is useful if you are going to leave your computer unattended for a period of time.
To log out of your master password:
If you forget your master password, you won't be able to access any of the stored password and form data that it protects. Your master password is your most important password. Make sure you remember it or record it in a safe place.
Each master password is associated with a single user profile. You can't change an existing master password for a profile unless you enter the existing password first.
Therefore, the simplest solution to forgetting your passwordand the most drasticis to create a new profile. A new profile always starts out without any master password, so you can set a new one.
For information on creating a new profile, see Managing Profiles.
Unfortunately, a new profile will not include information about your stored passwords or form data. After you create a new profile, you must remember all of the user names, passwords, and other data that Password Manager and Form Manager have stored for you, because you will need to enter them again when you visit the web sites that require them.
In addition, a new profile will not include any customizations you may have made to your bookmarks, address books, mail filters, and so on while using your old profile.
It is possible to copy some files (such as bookmarks.html, which contains all your bookmarks) from your old profile directory to your new profile directory by hand, but this may not work for all your customizations.
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If you use the Internet at home and at work, you may want to have access to a different set of bookmarks, preferences, adddress books, email accounts, My Sidebar setup, and so on. Similarly, family members may want to share share a copy of the same browser software but keep their Internet identities separate.
The Profile Manager lets you create different profiles, each with its own booksmarks, preferences, email settings, and so on. You automatically create a default profile when you first install your browser software. When you create one or more additional profiles, you will be asked which you want to use each time you launch the browser.
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To create a profile:
The opening screen of the Profile Manager reappears, with the new profile listed and highlighted.
To set up your browser for the new profile, click Start Netscape 6. You'll be asked to activate the new profile for use with Netscape Webmail, Netscape Instant Messenger, and custom My Netscape page. If you don't want to activate the new profile for these purposes at this time, click Cancel, and the program will open.
As you begin using the new profile, you will be asked for additional information as you perform tasks that require itfor example, checking your email.
You may want to delete profiles that you don't normally use. For example, if you have more than one profile available, you can't take advantage of the Quick Launch feature.
To delete or rename an existing profile:
This section describes how to set preferences for cookies. To view the preference settings for Cookie Manager:
Cookie acceptance preferences allow you to control the way Navigator handles cookies:
Disable cookies: Choose this to refuse all cookies.
If you want to be notified when a web site tries to set a cookie, select "Warn me before storing a cookie". Click OK to confirm your new cookie settings.
When the "Warn me before storing a cookie" option is selected in the Cookies preferences panel, you will be warned (while browsing) each time a web site requests permission to set a cookie. The warning allows you to accept or deny the cookie. The warning also allows you to select an option for your browser to "Remember this decision."
If you select "Remember this decision," you will not be warned the next time that site tries to set or modify a cookie, and your "yes" or "no" response will still be in effect.
If you wish to change a remembered response later, you can use Cookie Manager to edit your list of automatically stored cookies and the list of web sites for which you have approved or denied cookie access. To do so, click View Stored Cookies in the Cookies preferences panel.
For more information about viewing or editing cookie settings, see Using the Cookie Manager.
This section describes how to set preferences for images. To view the preference settings for images:
Image acceptance preferences allow you to control whether Navigator displays images:
These settings control how many times animated images repeat their animation:
This section describes how to set preferences for forms. To view the preference settings for Form Manager:
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When you fill out an online form and click Submit, Form Manager normally displays a dialog box that asks if you want it to save the form data you just entered. If you click Yes at least some of the time, Form Manager will soon have enough data to begin filling out forms automatically.
The option labeled "Save form data from web pages when completing forms" controls this notification featurethat is, it controls whether Form Manager asks if you want to save form data when you fill in a new form. If this option is selected, Form Manager displays the dialog box every time you click a Submit button. If this option is not selected, Form Manager never asks if you want to save form data.
Note that deselecting this option turns off the notification feature, but not Form Manager. The form data it may have already collected is still available. You can still pull down the Edit menu and choose Save Form Data any time you want to save information from a form you've just filled in, or choose Prefill Form to fill in a form automatically.
For more information, see Using the Form Manager.
To examine or edit personal data that Form Manager has saved, click View Stored Form Data. After the Form Manager window appears, you can double-click a category to view its subcategories, and click a subcategory to view its data. You can also add or change form data in this window.
If the Form Manager notification feature described above is turned on, Form Manager allows you to choose whether it should save the form data you enter at a particular site. But what if you change your mind later? For example, you might have selected "Never for this site" in response to the question and decide later that you want Form Manager to save form data for that site after all.
Form Manager lets you change your mind at any time. To view or site-specific information about your saved form data, click View Sites.
In the resulting Form Manager window, the Forms Never Previewed tab lists all sites for which you selected "Bypass this screen when prefilling this form in the future" after choosing Prefill Form from the Edit menu. The Forms Never Saved tab lists all sites for which you selected "Never for this site" in response to the Form Manager's request to store form data.
To remove a site from either list, select one or more entries and click Remove. If you remove an entry from the Forms Never Previewed tab, Form Manager will again preview those forms the next time you attempt to prefill them. If you remove an entry from the Forms Never Saved tab, Form Manager will again ask to store form data when you fill in forms at that site.
For more information, see Using the Form Manager.
9/06/2001
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