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Two things before anything else.

1. This program does not require any installation or deinstallation. If you want to remove it, simply delete its folder. However, if you have used either or both of the two options to start Cookie Drift when your computer starts, you must turn off the corresponding options prior to deletion. If you don't do this, the next time you start Windows you will receive warnings that the program no longer exists. Just re-download and start the program, then make sure the checks are clear as shown, then delete it again.

2. The .NET Framework 2.0 (it is free) must be installed on your computer. Without it, Cookie Drift will not run. If your Video Card is ATI, it is likely that you already have the framework as it is used for their drivers. Many other newer applications and games also install it silently, so before attempting to install the framework, just try running Cookie Drift. If it fails to start, then you need to get the framework from here.

A framework-free version of Cookie Drift is available for the price of US $10 if you don't want to install the framework. Write to nofram@otvox.com for details.

Cookie Drift enables you to use websites that require cookies without actually letting them use cookies. If you simply block the cookies from a given website, usually you get a notice that you must allow cookies or you can't use the site. Many tools let you block cookies with such consequences.

But what happens if you accept a cookie and immediately delete it? Well, in most cases you gain access without actually compromising your privacy. Technically, you are accepting cookies. When the cookie gets deleted, you can't be traced using information that no longer exists.

Cookie Drift has two main features:
1. It notifies you when a cookie is created/changed on your computer
2. It lets you immediately delete it if you wish.

I. Get notified when a cookie is created / changed

Running Cookie Drift only in notify mode can give you an idea about the extent of the cookie usage today. There are three modes to alert you when a cookie is created or changed: textual, audio and visual. You can elect to enable the audio and visual cues, the textual listing is always ON. To enable alerts follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Cookie Drift is enabled:

2. To enable sound alerts, click the sound button to depressed position

3. Tick the visual alert you would like to use. This alert type uses the control lights of your keyboard. There are three options. You can set the NumLock, CapsLock and ScrollLock to blink.

4. The silent notification (Created / Edited Cookies list) is always on when the Drift is enabled. It lists all changes since the start of the program.

Note: The Created and Deleted lists can get out of sync. This is because sometimes the website itself requests that a cookie gets renamed or deleted by your browser. To avoid confusion, Cookie Drift logs in the Deleted list only the removal of cookies that were intended to stay.

II. Delete a cookie after its creation

In this mode a newly created cookie can be deleted immediately. Also, if an old cookie gets edited from a website, it gets deleted as well. Since sometimes it is practical to keep particular cookies, e.g. for auto login, you can set filters as to which cookies to keep. There are two logical pathways explained bellow. Proceed as follows:

1. Choose either protected or banned mode. In protected mode all new cookies that are not from the websites in the protected list will be deleted. In banned mode new cookies will only be deleted if their websites are in the banned list. Note that when you visit a site, you can also receive cookies from other servers. For example if three different websites have banners from one advertisement company, visiting all three sites results in a cookie from that advertisement company. Unless that company is also in the banned list, its cookies will be saved onto your computer. Such cookies are referred to as third party cookies and they can be disabled in your browser too.

2. Don't forget to edit the lists with your preferred sites depending on your chosen deletion mode. Enter only site names without leading www. or extensions like .com, .net etc. to ensure maximum recognition. It doesn't matter if you use lower, upper or mixed case.

3. Make sure the Cookie Drift is enabled:

Share your lists with others

Alternatively you can edit the Protected and Banned lists with a text editor like Notepad. They are located in the same directory with the Cookie Drift.exe. This functionality makes it easier to share your lists with other people. Just make sure to press the "Update Lists" button when you are done or reopen Cookie Drift for the changes to take effect.

Delete already present cookies

To avoid unnecessarily complicated interface Cookie Drift itself does not offer a way to delete existing cookies. To delete them with Windows Explorer, press the Cookie Folder button and delete whatever cookies you like. Press the "Refresh Grid" button to see the changes.

Cookie Statistics

Apart from its notification and deletion features, Cookie Drift also presents nicely formatted information about the cookies currently residing on your computer. It shows you where the cookie came from, its file name, when it was created, last modified and when it will expire. You can sort the list on any of these criteria. On the right side you can see the contents of each cookie without the need to open it manually.

Personally we find the expiration date the most curious. When it is reached, its parent website can no longer acquire it. Your browser may decide to delete an expired cookie but as already mentioned, the website has no longer access to it (it can create a new cookie however). The usual computer today can understand dates up to the end of year 9999. Oddly enough, some cookies are set to expire exactly at that time. Whether their parent websites hope to last that long themselves or they expect your PC to remain operational till the end of computer time is beyond me. Still, it is always amusing to see some healthy optimism.

The "Creation" column shows the time when the cookie was physically created as your computer interprets it. If you cut and paste a cookie, the time of the pasting will be shown as creation date.

The "Modified" column shows the date as saved in the cookie itself. Since computer time does not care about daylight saving time, Cookie Drift adopts the same strategy to reduce overhead. The presented date and time are calculated upon the number of 100 millisecond intervals that have passed since January 1, 1601. Because of that, it is possible to see a one hour difference between the time in the cookie and the way you perceive time. This affects only the time, there are never date discrepancies.

Cookies can contain only information, they are not programs. With them, your actions and habits can be linked to a single entity. If you visit a particular website only mornings, cookies can tell that. They can also tell what pages of a website have you visited so far and when. Also what products have you shown interest in (even if you haven't bought anything) or what pictures have you opened from their thumbnails. Or from what other site you are coming, what search strings did you use on search engines etc. Some websites even send a cookie when you are leaving them! Not just today but on any day since your OS was installed.

Simply said, cookies enable collecting information about a particular computer's account activity. Anything you do that can be written down, can also be saved in cookies or through using them. It is enough to give a cookie a unique number and check when this number shows up from a visitor. Then the activity of that visitor gets logged on some server under the unique number. If you also supplied your personal information to a website, the whole gathered information can also be tied to a particular person (you), not just to the computer.

Deleting a cookie breaks the identifying link. The next time you visit a website and there are no cookies from that site on your computer, you are issued a cookie with a new tracking ID. Delete it again and you are again severing a connection to your next visit. Thus no one could say what your habits are, based on your activities on that website.

Cookie Drift can automate that deletion but if you don't like the program for some reason, you can always do it manually.

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