[smileydub]

After web surfing for even a few minutes, my Windows computer always attracts lots of cookies and “Temporary Internet Files”, which I delete every day. This happens inspite of my tweaking the browsers to prevent cookies and pop-ups. Do the Macs also attract these cookies and “Temporary Internet Files”? I could not find them in the Macbook. If the Macs don’t use them to facilitate internet browsing, what equivalents do Macs use?

[Tomchu]

Asking if Macs use cookies for web browsing is almost the same as asking if they use HTTP for browsing.

HTTP is stateless, meaning that with each request, the web server has already forgotten who you are, and what kind of information it passed to you and what you passed back. Cookies are a way to "retain" information between HTTP requests.

So yes, Macs make use of cookies. They also make use of cache, so as to increase performance.

[jasong]

Assuming you are using Safari, to view the cookies, go to the Safari menu and choose preferences, click the Security button, and the choose show cookies. You can then choose to remove them all, or select the ones you want to delete and then choose remove.

There are some applications out there that allow for better cookie manipulation, although I can't remember what they are called at the moment. I used one of them to turn off those stupid green links here on MacNN permanently (the cookie set by the interface here only disables them for one month, I changed the cookie to stay until November 2027. Sorry MacNN, those things tick me off).

[besson3c]

If you are thinking along the lines of security, having/using cookies and a cache in and of itself is not a significant security risk.

[ghporter]

Most cookies are completely benign. And "temporary Internet files" are just the browser's way of saving YOU time-they are the cache files that make the second time you visit a sight load a LOT faster since most of the graphical elements are cached.

Safari uses cookies and a cache, just like all other current browsers. Unless you visit "bad" sites, there's nothing bad about either one. However, if you're deleting your cookies and cache every day, you might want to delete your history as well, because this shows what sites you've visited over a rather long period.

[smileydub]

Thanks for your replies. I was afraid that those Temporary Internet Files could be used as spies to send back my HDD data to their masters. My other concern was that these hog up my HDD space, and so I delete them. However, glad to know they're benign.


Do you know of any portable applications that could be installed and run from a USB flash drive when inserted into a Mac, apps such as: browsers, word processors, photo editing, ftp clients, etc.? So far, I've only found portable apps that run on Windows.

[ghporter]

Macs are not subject to the kind of "spyware" exploits Windows computers are because things work rather differently under OS X than under Windows. Most of the Temporary Internet Files are graphics or style sheets and such. Cookies are also generally completely safe, and since they're just plain text files, they're also typically VERY small, so they don't eat up much disk space.

[SSharon]

I don't remember if it is a built in feature or an extension I once had, but it cleared all private data from firefox whenever it quit.
You can also enable private browsing in safari if you are really paranoid.

[jyunderwood]

On the mac cookies aren't even text files, they are entries in an xml file which can be a whole 3MB after a month or so of browsing. As far as your cache, most browsers allow you to set a limit; mine is 100MB. It will balance the cache and make sure it's effective and smaller than that size.

As far as portable applications go, most mac apps are pretty portable -most are drag and drop, there is no installing or DLLs running around. They are completely self contained except for personal prefs. I don't know how you could get your prefs to be on the flash drive too unless you make a sym link or something.

I think there is a completely portable version of firefox for mac like the windows version.

You seem to take security a lot more seriously than others (maybe too much). Have you considered a different approach? Staying safe on Windows and staying safe on the Mac are two different topics.

You have openfirmware passwords and/or the standard user password, better file permissions, FileVault which encrypts your whole user folder and then decrypts it on the fly, and there are even virus protection software titles out there that you can thrown away money on -actually they work well in preventing you from spreading Windows virus to other Windows users that could never infect your mac system.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by jasong 

I used one of them to turn off those stupid green links here on MacNN permanently (the cookie set by the interface here only disables them for one month, I changed the cookie to stay until November 2027. Sorry MacNN, those things tick me off).

MacNN turned them off after a few weeks, and they never returned.