Privacy Settings in IE6
This week I’m going to talk about something that a lot of people have heard of but don’t know how to take advantage of. If the thought of leaving little bits of information all over the web isn’t something you want to happen, or you just want get a handle on it, then read on.
Internet Explorer’s Privacy Settings is a configuration tool that is located in Tools/Internet Options/Privacy . This will pull up a window with a slide bar along the upper left side, used for adjusting your level of Internet cookie settings. A brief description, just to the right of this slider tells you how the different positions on the bar controls how IE treats first-party, and third party cookies. The slide bar is a great way to scroll through a couple of different prepackaged setups that IE has put together.
Located under this are three buttons: Import, Advanced, and Default. At the bottom is another one labeled “Edit”. These buttons add flexibility to your IE settings by allowing you greater control over some details of your configuration.
The “Advanced” button allows you to override the privacy settings altogether, and have IE either Deny All, Allow All, or Prompt for All internet cookies as you surf the web.
The “Import” button is used to import your settings from a file, which has been either saved or obtained from some third party entity. Custom Private Settings , as these saved privacy settings are called, can be created and saved—it’s a little advanced so pay attention, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.
If your unhappy with your settings you can always bring them back to “Factory” settings by selecting the Default button that is bringing up the rear of these three buttons.
Now, the “Edit” button at the bottom of the Privacy Window has a pretty neat function as well. This allows you to explicitly deny or allow certain websites permissions to use cookies regardless of the privacy settings. So if you have your Privacy settings too high, and you want to allow cookies from a particular site, you can type that website’s address in the open field (under the Edit button), and check allow. Now this site will be allowed to put cookies into your IE.
Netscape also has security settings, but they are a little more complex. Just go to Edit/Preferences and click the arrow next to “Privacy & Security”
Stay safe out there,
~ Chad