Genealogy Chat

Hi everyone, I have been following this thread with interest and wondered if I could ask a question? If you delete all cookies does this mean that you cannot access those sites again ie BTopenworld. genesconnected, ancestry.com etc etc? I have deleted some cookies tonight for sites which I wasn't aware that I had accessed, probably son has looking for his music site!! Hope this doesn't sound like too silly a question, but I am relatively new to all this computor milarky!! Tahnks, Margaret

No it doesn't Margaret, you can still bring up those sites. Paul

Thank you Paul. Will try to sort it out tomorrow. Margaret

All a cookie does is tell your computer that you've been to that site before when you re-visit it. On the whole they're not bothersome, unless you have loads and loads. If your son is looking for music to download, I would be careful. My brother did that once and after we could only get onto the computer in safe mode. It took almost five hours just to get the darn thing up and running normally. Some of it was corrupt downloads, some was spyware, some I have no idea what it was or why it was giving me grief.

Greetings Margaret! Cookies serve no purpose on your computer other than to perhaps return you to a site you've already visited a milisecond faster than the first time you visited and to allow sites to track you (which is one of the many reasons you'll get pop-up ads coming up in your screen or more spam in your e-mail box.) Cookies and Temporary Internet files can be (and should be) emptied on occasion. It saves useless information on your computer and takes up valuable space on your hard drives. There is nothing in those files that your computers will miss or need. Judy

Judy, I have recieved your email and have replied. Just want to say a very BIG thankyou for the help, advice and time you have given. Jacky :-)

Thank you Katherine S and Judy in the States, So far - touch wood - I haven't had any problems. Keep my security up to date and defrag on a regular basis, but when I looked at how many cookies there were on my computor I couldn't believe it!! Anyway, I will get rid of them asap if they take up room. It is not music he is downloading, it is info on his music, so hopefully that will be OK except, as has been said, you seem to get more rubbish e-mails. Again, many thanks everyone for contributions to this thread. It has been very enlightening to a newbie!! Margaret

I've read all this with great interest, being a techie imbecile, but wonder if any of it applies to Macintosh. I use an eMac OSX. Anybody have any ideas? Mary Devon

Mary: I'm clueless when it comes to MacIntosh! You could enter your question and do a Google search which should find an answer to your questions. Judy

Judy Could I repeat what others have said. A big thank you for all your help. Most of us have very limited knowledge of our computers and just bash around on them taking pot luck and hoping all will go well. When at work we had back up help, now at home we don't have help and it is such a relief to be able to ask somebody who knows about things. Many thanks for all your help and I hope that we don't take up too much of your time. Ann Glos

Jackie J: Oh my! I can't believe I hadn't thought to ask before (or perhaps I did and it's slipped my mind.) Are you using Windows XP? If you are, there is a wonderful little feature that Microsoft has added to this version of Windows. There is an option in you computer that will allow you to go back in time and reset your computer to a time when it was working correctly. The only drawback to this is, say you've added to a family tree you've been working on, on your computer, or have saved other things that you saved and want, the computer won't retain those additions between today and the date you choose to reset your computer to. Not a big deal as long as you save everything you want to retain off of your computer. Backing up files should be done regardless. Judy

Hi I Tried to download Adaware a shortcut was installed on my desktop but Norton wouldn't let me access the site My son in law swears by the site but my eldest son says beware it could take aome files away which could cause further problems He says it's best to detete cookies, run disk cleanup and disk defragmenter on a regular basis and make sure you keep your Anti virus and Internet protection programmes upto date Bren

Bren: Although there is a possiblity, by some freak of nature, that Ada-ware would find and mistake a program for spyware, there is a safetly net in the Ada-ware program that "quarantines" what it finds opposed to deleting it from your computer. If after a few days all is running well on your computer, you then have option to completely delete that day's spyware cache. If it did, by chance, quarantine a program your computer needed, you then have the option to restore all that was quarantined back to where Ada-ware found it. Spyware reaks havoc on ones computer and in many cases, cost you a trip to the repair shop. Most of the problems that come into my shop are spyware related. I have Ada-ware on all my computers and have never had a problem with it. What your son said in referance to emptying cookies, temporary internet files, defragging, etc....are true and does, to some extent alleviate cookie related spyware, it does not, however, remove the most harmful ones that embed themselves in your computer without your knowledge. As for Norton, it's just a matter of making an exception within Norton's options to view a particular website. Judy

I've tried running ada-ware but keep getting message 'Authenticode signaure not found'. i've tried clicking on no as told but it will not run. georgina

Hi Georgina....it sounds like you may have your security level set too high on your computer and may need to lower it a bit. Do you recall what the site was that you got the download from? You could try unistalling the program you downloaded and try getting from another link. If you want to try another link, I can e-mail one to you.....Judy

Judy, Xp's restore function should not delete any personal data files (word processor docs, gedcom files etc) it restores system settings only. Bob

Bob I don't know about XP, but as far as I know, ME's System Restore will take you back to a particular point in time and restore the system exactly as it was then, so you do lose any changes you've made to documents/files since then. Unless I've completely misunderstood ....... Janet

Greetings all! Bob: I thought nothing of it, doing an XP restore, when I was having problems. After restoring, which I only restored back to a few days, I went back to working on the family tree and found that the work I had done over the last couple of days had disappeared! Thankfully, I had backed up the files onto CD. XP probably shouldn't have altered my documents, but it did so I just don't take any chances that can be avoided on the off chance my computer doesn't do what it's supposed to. Judy

Just double checked help says this "System Restore does not cause you to lose your personal files or password. Items like documents, e-mail messages, browsing history, and the last specified password are saved when you revert to an earlier state with System Restore. System Restore protects your personal files by not restoring any files in the My Documents folder. It also does not restore any files that use common data file name extensions, such as .doc or .xls. If you're not sure whether your personal files use common data file name extensions, and you do not want the data files to be affected by System Restore, save them in the My Documents folder. If a program was installed after the restore point that you are restoring to was created, the program might be uninstalled as part of the restoration process. Data files that are created with the program are not lost. However, in order to open the files again, you must reinstall the associated program." Thats as clear as mud to me Judy, so if it considers gedcom files "uncommon" it might change them. unless you place them in My Documents Bob

Bob....thanks for looking that up and explaining. My tree program had been on my computer for well over a year so I don't know what happened. My computer has been known to do some strange things that even my Tech Whizz nephew can't explain! Haunted perhaps? LOL!