MANAGING COOKIES – A SAFER BROWSING EXPERIENCE

Many people may feel threatened by the fact that a better browsing experience comes at the cost of their personal information being used. If you feel the same and find it an invasion of your personal space over the internet, here are some tweaks for your browser to make you panic a little less. The following steps will explain how to go about it –

Chrome: Once the Google Chrome web browser is open, to the right of your address bar, you’ll find the Chrome menu symbol (3 horizontally parallel lines), click it and follow these steps.

A. Go to settings

B. Scroll down and go to ‘Show advanced settings...’

C. In the Privacy section, click the ‘Content settings…’ button

D. A popup will display all the Cookies settings. Manage your cookies preferences as per your needs.

Firefox: Open the Firefox web browser. You will find an orange Firefox button to the left of the tabs. Click it to open a drop down menu and follow these steps.

A. Right side of the drop down menu contains an ‘Options’ button. Click on it

B. A popup will be displayed. Move to the Privacy tab in the popup

C. Go to ‘Firefox will:’ setting and choose ‘Use custom settings for history’

D. The ‘Accept cookies from sites’ option should be checked. Uncheck the same.

Internet Explorer: Open the world’s slowest web browser and you will find the Internet Explorer tools button (white colored gear) just below the ‘X’ button on the top right corner of the browser. Click it and follow these steps.

A. Select ‘internet options’ from the drop down menu

B. A popup will be displayed. Move to the Privacy tab in the popup

C. Drag the vertical scroll up for higher security by blocking all the cookies and vice versa.

Word of advice: Cookies are just providing you a better experience while browsing the internet. They are like little puppies that are completely harmless. Also, if you use Internet Explorer as your main browser, try Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

FUN FACT – Even Microsoft knows people don’t use Internet Explorer as their main browser. The Microsoft support website asks you to find Internet Explorer from the start menu first.

I hope this guide to managing cookies settings for your browser will help you feel safer over the internet. Have a safe browsing experience and I’ll see you in the next one.