Rain Forest

[alan edmonds]

Hi, anyone help please,
I got an email about downloading the rainforest, with sounds and stuff as a screen saver..I downloaded it but when I when to instal it I got loads of stuff about the fact they use cookies, I don't even pretend to know what a cookie is, but I think someone on here has mention this before, this is free and it is from a organisation called,,Freeze, can anyone advise me if this is safe to instal, it looks well good but with all the problems I have read about other people getting into I thought I'd ask if anyone knows more about this.

thanks............Alan

 

[Trogg]

Hi Al

you've downloaded it from the freebies website yes??

I did the same mate but it takes up a hell of a lot of memory so i deleated it again, i never had any problems with it though.

ps i also downloaded the waterfalls one but again it uses so much memory i got rid of it

Alan

The ball is most definitely back

 

[Newt]

Alan - cookies are not, in themself, a bad thing. For instance, when you log on to MD and elect to have it remember you at each visit, it does so by placing a cookie (a little text file with information MD needs) on your PC.

But like so many internet things, they can be used or mis-used. The following is maybe more than you wanted to know but is a good intro to cookies and you can get more info by going to Cookie Central. BTW - they have a strong bias against many uses of cookies but are a great place for facts.

quote:Cookies are a very important method for maintaining state on the Web. "State" in this case refers to an application's ability to work interactively with a user, remembering all data since the application started, and differentiating between users and their individual data sets.

An analogy I like to use is a laundry cleaner's shop. You drop something off, and get a ticket. When you return with the ticket, you get your clothes back. If you don't have the ticket, then the laundry man doesn't know which clothes are yours. In fact, he won't be able to tell whether you are there to pick up clothes, or a brand new customer. As such, the ticket is critical to maintaining state between you and the laundry man.

Unfortunately, HTTP is a "stateless" protocol. This means that each visit to a site (or even clicks within a site) is seen by the server as the first visit by the user. In essence, the server "forgets" everything after each request, unless it can somehow mark a visitor (that is, hand him a "laundry ticket") to help it remember. Cookies can accomplish this.

1.1 What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a text-only string that gets entered into the memory of your browser. This value of a variable that a website sets. If the lifetime of this value is set to be longer than the time you spend at that site, then this string is saved to file for future reference.

1.2 Where did the term cookies come from?

According to an article written by Paul Bonner for Builder.Com on 11/18/1997:

"Lou Montulli, currently the protocols manager in Netscape's client product division, wrote the cookies specification for Navigator 1.0, the first browser to use the technology. Montulli says there's nothing particularly amusing about the origin of the name: 'A cookie is a well-known computer science term that is used when describing an opaque piece of data held by an intermediary. The term fits the usage precisely; it's just not a well-known term outside of computer science circles.'"

1.3 Why do sites use Cookies?

There are many reasons a given site would wish to use cookies. These range from the ability to personalize information (like on My Yahoo or Excite), or to help with on-line sales/services (like on Amazon Books or eBay), or simply for the purposes of collecting demographic information (like DoubleClick). Cookies also provide programmers with a quick and convenient means of keeping site content fresh and relevant to the user's interests. The newest servers use cookies to help with back-end interaction as well, which can improve the utility of a site by being able to securely store any personal data that the user has shared with a site (to help with quick logins on your favorite sites, for example).

Newt Vail, Concord, NC. USA

 

[Dave]

You beat me to it Newt []

A lot of speculation has been made over the years as to whether or not Cookies are safe and in the main they are but an unscrupulous person could use them for purposes other than what they were originally intended.

Writing a 'Cookie' to a PC can be done in several ways, but all use some form of coding set within a webpage. This code can be set to write the small text file when a visitor opens the page or when a visitor elects to accept it such as the log in on the forum.
This forum software creates a small text file which includes your ID and the date/time that you logged in along with a unique code that the forum looks for and the forum's url.
When you log in that file will then be created and will reside in your temporary internet files folder and when you change from page to page within the forum the software takes a quick look for the cookie to determine the content that you'll see.

A quick example is if you're not logged in (ie no cookie) and go to reply to this topic, the page you'll see will include a message asking you to log in or register plus a couple of fields to enter your name and password at the top of the posting form.
If you're logged in you don't see any of that because the cookie tells the software that you're a member already logged in

Also the cookie can be used to check for permissions such as the 'MyPhoto'. If you're not logged in you cannot see the link to it whereas if you are you can, and so on...

Cookies can also have an 'expiry time' written into them where after a time period they delete themselves. Some such like the ones that you get when on-line shopping can have a long expiry time so that the store's software will remember you for tracking purposes, online banks will use a 'session' cookie that deletes itself after a short period of time in case you forget to log out in case someone else has the opportunity to use the same PC, ours is more a conveinience type and is set to delete itself 30 days after your last visit
You can of course delete it yourself at the end of each session by logging out should you wish []



Dave

 

[alan edmonds]

Dave..great..as I said, I'm not that good at the technicalities when it comes to pc expertise, but I'm learning, or trying too, I really do appreciate the post and thanks to this help I realise that a cookie is not an edible object that will get me to be a pound or two fatter,,,yeah mate n thanks..
everyone wants to give stuff away on the net
it's probably me, I always get suspicious when some wants to give something away, and angry when they want too much money for it....sad arnt I.....

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel emin mate......Alan



alan