Not Actually Fixing Problems, It Would Appear

[Always Confused]

Firefox 3.5.4 (as of a short while ago), Vista Home Premium, Spybot 1.6.2.

I've been a bit suspicious about Spybot's removing tracking cookies recently, so I took a screen shot after last week's update, and again after today's update.

Close Firefox, update Spybot, immunize, run Spybot problem fixer, tell Spybot to fix the problems found. The screen shots of last week's run of Spybot, and the screen shot of today's run of Spybot, show the same thirteen tracking cookies.

That both week's Spybot screen shots show the same thirteen tracking cookies seems to me to be a failure of Spybot to actually remove the cookies (not that they are serious threats,) rather than just coincidence.

Comments (other than telling me to go away...)?

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Once in a while Spybot - Search & Destroy has trouble removing those.
Here is a thread in our forum that deals with the same problem.

If you don't have any other cookies you want to save in Firefox, you could click the Remove All Cookies button. This would be easiest, but don't do it if you have any cookies you want to keep.

If you do have other cookies in Firefox you want to keep, could remove the cookies manually from within Firefox. To do so go to Tools->Options->click the Cookies tab, then click the View Cookies button.
Looking off the Spybot report, scroll through the list to find the tracking cookie(s), then click on the tracking cookie with your mouse, and then click on the remove cookie(s) button.

Or you could try doing another scan with Spybot and see if it removes the tracking cookies this time (though it might not work, but you could try and see).

There's an article here, showing how to block third party cookies.

It is also recommendable to use SpywareBlaster also, which has an option to Prevent ad/tracking cookies in Firefox.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Always Confused]

Thanks for the information. It turns out to be stranger than I thought:

1. I use Spyware Blaster; I'd long forgotten about its (kindly notice correct spelling, with no apostrophe--one of my peeves, as a retired teacher...) option about blocking tracking cookies. Opened Spyware blaster, found the option, it is checked.

2. In Firefox, I use the Cookie Monster extension. Opened its list of cookies, found the first one in my Spybot list, tried to remove it, nothing happened.

3. Opened the cookie list directly in Firefox, found the cookie, tried to delete it, it would not go away. Then, it became even stranger: At first, there was only one entry for AdRevolver; then the list grew to ten or so entries, and none would go away. Then the list shrank to perhaps four entries; closed cookie list, reopened, only one entry for AdRevolve.

4. Closed FF, opened it in FF's Safe Mode, deleted all but one of the thirteen cookies listed in Spybot; one of them was not even there (Right Media). Closed FF, reopened in normal mode, tracking cookies deleted in Safe Mode still there.

Truly weird; I wonder if perhaps my cookies.sqlite file, in the FF profile, is corrupt. However, the time stamp on the file shows that I was working with it a while ago, probably while I was in safe mode. I just tried to again remove a cookie, and the time stamp on the file did not change.

Clearly a conspiracy; time to start a new conspiracy-theory blog....

(Just got a Run Time Error message for something while I was writing this; no idea what it referred to, sigh.)

[Always Confused]

Cancel all conspiracy theories for today, thank you:

1. A problem with StatCounter was fixed by someone telling me to set something, a "something" I had set and forgotten. Changed one digit in the setting, problem fixed.

2. Some further musing (note my honesty, I did not use the word "thinking"...) about the non-removed tracking cookies with Spybot led me, eventually to the realization that the cookies that Spybot was not removing are not supposed to be removed.

Some time ago, I installed the Firefox extension Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO); my musing led me back to the lengthy list of TACO's opt-outs, and, yes, the cookies that Spybot was not removing were put there by TACO, and not meant to be deleted.