How to Enable Cookies in Internet Explorer

Tap to Read ➤ Sheetal Mandora

What are cookies and how can it be enabled in Internet Explorer? Is it important to enable or disable cookies in Internet Explorer? Read on to get the answers.

A cookie is a piece of information that contains a unique identifier. Whenever you visit a website, this unique identifier is sent to your browser. It saves itself as a file on your laptop or computer, recognizes you as a unique user, and tracks what you search for on the web.

Enabling Cookies in Internet Explorer

Open your browser and click on the menu "Tools". In the same menu, choose "Internet Options". This will open a new window. Here, select "Privacy" tab which is on top of the window. You will see an up and down slider which may be on "Medium High".

Move it and go down, till you see "Accept All Cookies". Now select the "Default" button which is on the right side of the window, just below the slider. Click on "Apply" as it will save your work.

For per-site basis, follow the steps that are mentioned here. In the same window, just below the slider, you will see a "Sites" tab. Click on it and enter the website(s) url in the space provided. Now you can either choose "Allow" or "Block" cookies from the sites you mentioned there.

If you move the slider button to "Accept All Cookies" or "Block All Cookies", per-site rules will be ignored. If you choose "Accept All Cookies" or "Block All Cookies", the "Sites" button option will have higher priority than your privacy preferences.

Remember these are "Third-party" cookies which are set by the advertisers. You want to steer clear of it and enable it on any browser that you may choose to use.

Where are the Cookies Stored?

These are stored or saved on your computer's hard drive. Each platform gets a different filename when the cookies are stored. So on a Windows machine, the cookie data/information will be stored in *.txt files.

While you surf the web, most of these are useful and some (session cookies) are lost after you close a particular web browser. The later cookies come in handy as they remember your specific webpage choices and can help you navigate through the site conveniently. Certain sites leave cookies on your computer in order to recognize once you revisit the site.

What is Cookie Technology?

When you use variety of services over the Internet, like free e-mail accounts, e-commerce, and online forums sites, it come in handy. Let's say you wish to make an online purchase. Without these cookies, that particular website won't have the tools necessary to track the items you want. This information was about what good things a cookie can do.

Now let's look at how malicious they can get. Malicious cookies track which other sites you may be going through on the web. For example, you are on a particular webpage and you see ads on all sides of it. But those ads are not placed by the website you are visiting as of now.

You may find the same ads being displayed on various other sites. What makes these Internet cookies malicious is that the advertising company sends it on your computer to track your browsing habits over a range of sites.