You may be paying for high speed Internet service, but if your computer has slowed down recently, deleting cookies may be a quick way to improve performance.

Cookies are small bits of data that are saved on your computer’s hard drive and allow a website to remember things about your visits. It may be log-in information, preferences, or how you have used the site over several visits. If you go to the site frequently, not having to re-enter the information is convenient. However, even if you visit the site once and never return, some information may be saved in a cookie on your hard drive. This saved data takes up more and more space over the months and years, eventually impacting your computer’s performance.

Deleting cookies on most Internet browsers usually involves going under Tools and then Options and selecting the Delete Cookies option. But what if you don’t want to delete all the cookies? First, see if there is an option to delete everything except the cookies and other history from pages you have designated as a Favorite. Obviously, review your Favorites list and update as necessary before you then delete Cookies.

There is also a way to review the list of Cookies on your computer and individually specify which ones you delete. To do this in the Explorer web browser, select Tools then Internet Options and then the General tab. Underneath Temporary Internet Files click on Settings and then in the resulting dialog box, click on View Files. You’ll see a list of all temporary files, including cookies. You can sort by name to see all the Cookies together. (You’ll be surprised at some of the cookies listed there from sites you haven’t visited in months.) Select and delete the files you no longer need, leaving those that you access frequently.

Regardless of you decide to manage your cookies, the important thing is to make it a regular practice to at least do something. This will ensure that your computer and its high speed Internet service continue to perform at the speed you expect.

Tags: high speed Internet service

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Internet Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.