How to block cookies and referrer?

Hello everyone,

I did an online security test on http://www.pcflank.com/index.htm and when i did the browser test it failed the test. See attached .jpg for more information.

Is it possible to configure Comodo Firewall Pro so that block cookies and referrers are blocked?

My system:
Windows XP Pro SP2 X64 EN
Mozilla Firefox 3.0
Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0.25.378
Comodo BoClean 4.26
Comodo Memory Firewall 2.0.4.20

mr_unreal3

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PC Flank is a bs site. You don’t need Comodo to block cookies. Firefox has that option if you want to block cookies but cookies arent spyware nor do they cause you any harm.

The short answer is that CFP doesn’t provide this functionality however it’s needed either because it’s already possible to prevent cookie abuse.

[b]What is a Cookie?[/b] A cookie is a small text file saved onto your hard drive by your browser as directed by the web site being viewed. The purpose of cookies is to save a user's preferences so he or she doesn't have to keep entering them each time that web site is visited. Usually the information in this text file contains the choices the user made of what content to display, the colors preferred, etc.

However, a few companies are using cookies to track the surfing habits of users. Cookies are even being used to identify specific users and their web page preferences. The data is apparently being used to target advertising to specific audiences to increase the effectiveness of those ads.

If you do not want this type of information about you distributed to these advertisers, you should disable cookies in your web browser.

Cookies are not necessarily evil as this standard was created to overcome specific issues.

However it is possible to use them to track a browser’ users habits and behaviours to present targeted advertising.

This tracking is done sharing a unique ID cookie among many sites. Since cookies are usually preserved between browser sessions it would be possible to track habits and beaviours for months. Many antyspyware softwares limit their action to remove cookies from ad networks during on-demand scanning (Using your browser features to delete all cookies will yeld the same effect, however it will delete also cookies you may find useful)

There are many ways to prevent tracking:
Disable cookies: a number of sites may not work properly, some sites may not work at all.
Make cookies Session only: In order to track behaviours ID cookies have to be available for a reasonable amount of time. Deleting cookies on browser exit will impair tracking (BTW it would be always possible to gather somewhat acurate tracking data using your IP as unique ID).
Accept only cookies from sites I visit: Usually ad tracking cookies are bind to a totally different domain from the sites you are visiting (this may not work for Search engines related services).
Ad filtering: filtering specific ad domains will both remove ads and prevent ad tracking cookies.

I personally use Make cookies Session only, Accept only cookies from sites I visit and Ad filtering options in Opera Browser and it is possible to enable those features in other browsers as well.
Sites Preferences Opera speific option allow me to easily enable cookies and other features (eg, flash, java, javascript) on a per site basis.

This way I can allow only specific sites to retain cookie data or use any advanced functionality.

[b]What is a referrer?[/b]

When you browse a web site, it can collect various data about you, such as the Internet address of your computer, your region, Operating System, browser type, browser version, etc. Your web browser automatically sends this information each time it locates a new web site. One of these data is the referrer, which is the location of the last site you visited. Sites keep track of this data, mostly in a general way for statistical data and marketing research. There is a growing concern that online privacy is being infringed. To safeguard your privacy we recommend getting competent firewall software to block your browser sending information about you and your computer.

Referrer information along with other information passed by browsers can be necessary to access some sites and to present browser compatible content (statistics of end user browser can also be used to improve the site desing to support specific browsers).

Referrer it is also used to implement some sort of site resources protection.

Not all browser can disable it but there are some adfiltering proxies that may be able to do so.
Opera can disable referrers too.


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