I had to adjust my host file, and included the tracking cookie site 2o7.com etc. there. The site www.2o7.com now redirects to those behind it. Tracking cookies as such are no threat, but what people do with them can be. In another case cookies are a danger in wrong hands. If they steal certain cookies of yours, you can change passwords, but cookies prevail on certain sites and you cannot log onto some private webspace, logged out by your own cookies hijacked. So clean out the cookies you do not need, and keep your webhistory only from the previous day.
Thanks for the info, polonus. An up-to-date hosts file is a must, in my opinion.
I use a whitelist for cookies, via the Cookie Manager in Mozilla, and the sites I allow to set cookies are quite few (mostly, forums on which I’m registered). I rarely see a site (other than those I trust enough to do business with, etc.) that really needs cookies in order to work, but I guess others, with different surfing habits, might have difficulties with such a restrictive approach.
And I also use SpywareBlaster’s cookie blacklist – a little redundant here, I guess :P.
I agree with you, hosts file can be a blessing, just leave on your computer what you need & block the nasties. Exclusivité: cookies for registrations, subscriptions, services you have enlisted too. Some cookies can be forever. For instance all you put on GMail even when you have deleted it, stays on “their” servers, so cookies can have an elephant’s memory: Google until 2038.
