tetonbob

Hello, and welcome to the forums.

Cookies are nothing to be particularly worried about. They get installed on your computer everytime you visit any webpage. Now some of those are good cookies that get installed for ease of use for next time you visit the same page, but some cookies are spyware used for tracking users surfing habits.

Most of those cookies are third party cookies that can be blocked:

In Firefox go to Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies

Click Exceptions, identify the site you want to block, and click on Block.

In IE go to Tools > Internet Options > Privacy and click on Advanced in the Privacy tab

Now put a check next to "Override automatic cookie handling"

Set first party cookies to Accept and third party cookies to Block

Also put a check to "Always allow session cookies" OK your way out.

This won't prevent all bad cookies from being installed, but will reduce the amount.

Also there is another program you can use.

Spywareblaster Prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted software. Blocks spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox. Restricts the actions of potentially unwanted sites in Internet Explorer.

You can read more about cookies at the Cookie Concept

You can tidy up with this tool:

Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune.
This program is for XP and Windows 2000 only

• Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
  Under Main choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.

If you use Firefox browser

• Click Firefox at the top and choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.
  NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

If you use Opera browser

• Click Opera at the top and choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.
  NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program.
For Technical Support, double-click the e-mail address located at the bottom of each menu.

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If you think the machine is infected...

Please follow our pre-posting process outlined here:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/secu...oval-help.html

After running through all the steps, please post the requested logs in the Virus/Trojan/Spyware Help forum, not here.

If you have trouble with one of the steps, simply move on to the next one, and make note of it in your reply.

Please note that the Virus/Trojan/Spyware Help forum is extremely busy, and it may take a while to receive a reply.