Month: January 2014

Ann Gordon, via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] So today is National Clear out your Browser Cookies and Cache day. January 14th. It’s a new holiday I just declared. Actually it’s just a glitch. In an effort to scam another week out of a major paywall-protected newspaper I accidentally clicked the ‘remove all’ cookie option in my browser and deleted 3,285 cookies this morning. The last time I did this, about a year ago, it was 4,250 cookies that had been saved. So how often should you be clearing your cookies?  Some people don’t accept cookies in the first place so let’s just ignore them for the time being. Some clear cookies daily, which seems a bit excessive to be honest. Apparently there have been some studies. One conducted by Comscore showed that about 31% of people deleted cookies within 30 days.  Another by the Sun-Times said 45% within 30 days. I’ve gone about six months. So maybe I’ll just set a daylight savings time reminder–when we spring forward or fall back, I’ll clean the cookies in my browser. And change the batteries in my smoke detector (if I had one). Or I’ll just keep clearing them every time I want to read the Telegraph or the Washington Post.  ]]>