What are "cookies" and how do they affect my profile?

Cookies are small files that are used by Internet Explorer to keep track of information for websites. When a lot of cookies are stored in your profile, you may be driven over profile quota. An example of a type of cookie, is when you click "Remember me" on a website that requires a login. Clicking that checkbox creates a cookie that stores your username and password in your user profile. While this is not the only type of cookie in existance, it is important to understand that they do exist.

How can one clean out cookies? The easiest way is to open up Internet Explorer and go to Tools->Internet Options and under Browsing Options click the "Delete..." button. Then, click "Delete cookies..." and click "Yes". This will then delete your cookies. Keep in mind that if you had saved any website login information, this will delete that information and you will have to log into your websites again.

If this fails to clean your cookies, then please email us or come to our front desk and ask for help. We will be more than happy to help you clean your cookies.

Firefox

As of Mozilla Firefox 3.x, there is a new method that is used to store bookmarks, browser history and other saved data. A "database" file is used to store this information. This database file can tend to get rather large and use up a lot of profile space. There's a fairly simple fix to this problem, however.

First, back up your bookmarks, unless you don't mind losing them. To do this, click Bookmarks->Organize Bookmarks...->Import and Export. Pick a file name and save it somewhere safe. Now, navigate to:

\\khensu\Profile[nn]\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\something.default\

In this folder, delete the places.sqlite file and the urlclassifier2.sqlite. Now you've freed up more space in your profile. You can reimport your bookmarks from the same dialog as explained earlier.