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How to Remove Cookies

There are two common problems with logging into our site that involve cookies. The most common is that you have an older cookie that the site no longer recognizes because of a software upgrade or something. This page shows you steps in removing cookies.

The other problem is less common: the site may be blocked from giving you a new cookie – your browser may have blocked future cookies when you deleted the older ones. To fix this, see permit.

See Also

Try Our Tool (Experimental)

This form should let you delete all the cookies created by our site. This will often fix problems logging into the site. No cookies is not “normal” and should only happen after you delete them; other wise you need to allow cookies from puzzlers.org.
webmaster@puzzlers.org

Removing our cookies will effectively log you off our site.

For Internet Explorer 6 (Windows)

Please note: I am not an Internet Explorer user and I recommend users use something that has a far more sane idea of security and properly conforms to standards such as Firefox. No one who understands the potential of ActiveX will tell you it is “safe” and Microsoft only asserts that “Signed controls have a verifiable point of origin”; that is, after your security has been compromised, assuming your computer is usable, they can prove the programmer knew how to use the Microsoft ActiveX SDK. A little bit of research into “Browser helper objects” which are a simple ActiveX control will show just how widely many applications abuse the opportunity of being on your PC. Caveat Emptor to be sure.

A The best way to remove specific cookies is:

Select Tools|Internet Options from the menu.

Or you can use the Control Panel to open the same Internet Options window.
Internet Explorer's "Tools" menu
On the General Tab, Click the Settings button in the Browsing History group Internet Explorer's "Internet Options" dialog
On the “Temporary Internet Files and History Settings” dialog, select View Files Internet Explorer's "History Settings" dialog
An explorer window will open to c:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. If you sort the folder by Internet Address, file of the type named “Cookie:<user>@<site>” will be at the top.

Find anything from @puzzlers.org or @www.puzzlers.org and delete them.
No image.
The above steps may be all you need to do.

In some cases, users have reported that they needed to reboot their computers to completely flush the NPL cookies from IE's memory.
No image.

Erratum and Various Bits

  • These instructions have illustrations from IE7, but further research shows under IE7, cookies are now saved in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Cookies where <user> is “owner” or your computer login name depending on your version of Windows. Oddly, this is not a folder that IE gives you simple access to.
  • If you use a browser older than IE7, then your cookies will be in c:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files instead – or, you'll find older ones there even if you use IE7.
  • Searching your Windows PC for cookies in unrealiable since the “Local Settings” folder is hidden and won't be searched in most cases (if you have “Show hidden files” ON, the search succeeds).
There is an issue with IE7 when user logs in, a session is created and saved using in-proc cookies which are saved in the IE7 client browser. When a new window is opened in the same session and then closed, the cookies are deleted and the session is lost, even though the first window is still opened. The session was not closed. This happens only on certain PCs, not always and only with IE7. This problem is only with IE7, all other browsers are ok.

This is an IE7 bug. The session cookies are getting deleted when you close a window – ANY IE Window, not just the last one. At the moment no fix exists except not to use cookies for your session variables. The problem only exists on certain computers. The problem will not occur as often if you change your settings in Tools/Internet Options/General/Browser History Settings/Everytime I visit the web page.

A suggestion from a Microsoft help suggests that the start home page in the IE7 should be set to a internet page and not a local file.

See For Internet Explorer 7 for more notes about using IE7 with our website.

For Netscape Navigator

A The best way to remove specific cookies is:

A FIXME – Write this up

For Mozilla Firefox

A The best way to remove specific cookies is:

Open the Tools|Options… item on the menu Firefox tools menu
Select the Privacy option in the white bar at the top, then click on the Show Cookies button in the cookies group. Firefox "Options" dialog
Enter “puzzlers.org” in the search criteria. Then click in the list of cookies that match your search. Click on Remove Cookie until the list is empty. Firefox "Show Cookies" dialog

For Opera

A The best way to remove specific cookies is:

Select the Tool|Preferences option on the menu. Opera "Tools" Menu
Click on the Advanced tab at the top. Then select Cookies on the left. Then (finally!) click the Manage Cookies button. Opera "Preferences/Advanced" dialog
Enter “puzzlers.org” in the search input. Press the Delete button until the list box is empty. Opera "Manage Cookies" dialog

For Safari

A The best way to remove specific cookies is:

Select Edit|Preferences from the menu. Apple Safari's Edit menu
Click on the Security icon in the white band at the top of the Dialog. Click on the Show Cookies button1). Apple Safari's Preference dialog
Click on a cookie from www.puzzlers.org or puzzlers.org and press the Remove button. Apple Safari's cookie window
1) Note I was not able to get this button to activate with the current version of Safari for Windows
 
faq/cookies/remove.1214721320.txt.gz · Last modified: 2008/06/29 02:35 by kite
 
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