Thread: Cookies! *Sheesh!

I cleaned and checked the cookie folder. No cookies. One click to PM 'General New' which was already running, created more than EIGHTY! cookies. The second click ran the total up to One hundred and twenty cookies.

Before I cleaned the Cookie folder three forths of the folder was filled with PM related cookies.

WHY? !!!

Just FYI.

Regards,

Stan-

My untechnicial answer, cookies are left so you can quickly navigate around the site you visit. Sort of like leaving a trail of crumbs to find your way out of a maze. If each page took as long as the site to load, this site would have a thousand posts rather than one million.

I have had the same thing happen on this and other sites as well . I go to load a page and it gets into a loop and keeps loading the same page over & over . Not sure why it does this but suspect its an internet explorer fault . A good thing my phone jackis on the wall next to the computer , because the only way I can get it to stop and get control of my computer is to physically pull the plug out of the jack . I have had as many as 50 of the same page running . Would appreciate any explanation out there .

FBB

Originally Posted by Toms Wheels

My untechnicial answer, cookies are left so you can quickly navigate around the site you visit. Sort of like leaving a trail of crumbs to find your way out of a maze. If each page took as long as the site to load, this site would have a thousand posts rather than one million.

Cookies were once used by and limited to your browser's relationship with a single server. Then it was discovered they could be used to track your movements around the Internet. By knowing what your interests are, targeted adverts became possible. Yesterday I went to amazon.com to buy a couple books dealing with retirement. Two ads popped up having to do with hurdy gurdys. What are the chances? Of all the things I dislike about the internet the one at the top of the list would be the tracking beacons used by this and other sites.

In PM there is no reason to leave a cookie. I don't mind getting a cookie if I go to an advertisement site and they want to know what I was looking for. But! To just fill my cookie folder with seventy five percent cookies from PM is rediculous.

Regards,

Stan-

Are you up to date on your spyware and adware checks? Do you use a good program for these? If not, they can load you up with cookies too. It may not be all PM that is cookifying your folder.

Just take a look at the cookies from the PM site and see what sites are monitoring what you look at on PM. So while you are looking a PM, they are looking at you! Here's just ONE example.. http://www.tacoda.net/

If you use the "remember me" option so that you don't have to log in every time, PM will leave you ONE cookie.

The rest are from Double-click, and possibly tacoda.

Double-click is a known spyware source, placing code or cookies on your machine for the specific purpose of tracking you, identifying your habits, "'targeting" ads, and so forth.

Some are apparently tied in to Google, since I notice ads on google are sometimes linked to PM topics etc.

I agree with you on "NO NEED" for PM to use tracking software. At the very least this activity is in my opinion un-ethical. I don't visit this sight so I can clean my machine after I am done. If PM wanted to be upfront and ethical about this issue they could give the user the option of accepting or rejecting the data tracking part of the cookie. It is because of this very issue I have limited my visiting the PM site. CDW

You know I'm really get sick of reading "PM, this and PM that" regarding tracking and such, when in reality it's Penton Publishing "doing" any "tracking", if anyone. I presume this has no clandestine "big brother is watching" aspects to it whatsoever, but is simply to help access the effectiveness of ads for the advertisers, and thus provide some guidance to attract more advertisers...or not.

Now, what do you want me to do about it ? The two year contract with Penton was up a few months ago, so I am free to break with them. I don't want to do that, but is that what you guys want ?

Originally Posted by Milacron

You know I'm really get sick of reading "PM, this and PM that" regarding tracking and such, when in reality it's Penton Publishing "doing" any "tracking", if anyone.

I don't want to get into a bashing contest in any way. I have few post here, but browse the forum a lot, and in my opinion it is by far the best metal working forum on the net, better even than books you buy. Everyone associates the forum with anything on it, be it slow loading ads, double click etc, and if anything is wrong with any of it, or someone is not satisfied with any part of it, the reflection is always to the site as a whole "PM". It would be the same as having a porn ad at the top, and the replies would then be "PM has turned into a porn site", maybe not the best reference, however I think it makes the point. As the forum owner you could ask anyone and they would tell you this is the best forum on the net for metalworking, however the members are upset at the new way advertising is being done, and they associate that with the entire site.

Clint

Give them the boot. They are using you to make large profits and ruining what you have worked so hard for.

Originally Posted by Red Sparky

They are using you to make large profits and ruining what you have worked so hard for.

Where are you getting your "large profits" figures from ? (that's news to me... )

Milacron,
I don't have a problem with the ads (T1 connection), but my question is who pays for the site? If Penton is paying for it, even if your contract is up, then who would pay for the site if you "gave em the boot"?

I thank you for all the mostly thankless work you do on this site.
It is the best machining forum on the WWW.

Originally Posted by cncprogman

Milacron,
...but my question is who pays for the site? If Penton is paying for it, even if your contract is up, then who would pay for the site if you "gave em the boot"?

No one. So, I would then be forced to deal with wooing advertisers myself, directly...plus the tedious placements and billing. Tricky proposition as I simply don't have the time to do that and run my regular business.

Then my vote is to tell all of the "whiners" to get some cheese to go with it and accept that ads and cookies are part of the forum!

Before dumping Penton, see if you can talk to them. A mistake has been made in some programing. Believe me when I say that if all Penton's customers had their web sites slowed as much as we have had, they ,Penton, would be out of business. I have NO problem with ads on this or other sites I visit. I would venture to say that many of us like the ads and click from time to time as they are relevant to our interests.
What none of us want or will tolerate is massive slowdown.

I am sure you will be able to work this out so your ad selling and ad hosting can be looked after by a third party and at the same time the code can be re worked so that the ads are allowed to be cached locally and the speed of page load is within the industry limits.

I view this as a technical problem rather than a business problem.Weirdly, this is a place where many of the qualities of the audience are well known (so it's a valuable place to put ads), and where at least some of the audience don't mind focused ads, so long as they don't slow the forum down.In short, it's a place where doubleclick, tacoda, etc. have no useful place. And in any case, they're used other places (notably the wall street journal) and don't cause this kind of hideous delay.In short, I urge you to press hard for a technical solution to this technical problem.

All this bitching and moaning, this is a wonderful resource and it's FREE! One of only two forums I check pretty much every hour, I'd stick around even if I had to pay for a membership.

Cookies are not a problem, just delete them when you leave the site or before you turn off the computer. The slow loading is the problem, and it sounds like they are trying to fix it. Be patient, and in the meantime turn off javascript. . . .