We have heard a lot about the word “Cookie” but many times we do not know what jobs they fulfill or what they really are in computing.
When we visit an Internet page, the website creates a file to host a small information or amount of data in our browser so that when we visit that page again it identifies us and we can access it in a faster and more comfortable way according to our preferences from previous visits.
That information or data that is created in the file, are what we call cookies and we must be careful with them because they are not as harmless as they seem. We will talk below about everything related to these files in our browsers for mobile phones or computers.
Why is it important to regularly delete cookies from your Android device’s browsers?
Although, in principle, “cookies” should not be detrimental to the user experience When we are browsing the Internet, these present complications or adverse results in the device and in our security.
For example, they can offer or sell our identity to different sites without our knowledge, or simply without our authorization.
Too saturate the browser making them slower because they need to load more information than we are requesting and, finally, can reduce battery for mobile teams.
Are cookies a real threat to our privacy on the Internet?
The question that arises in this part of our work is to decide whether cookies are functional or are a threat to our identity.
The answer to this topic is resoundingly yes, they are a threat to our privacy on the Internet. Through them, reports are obtained in which they can obtain our address, email, age, telephone number and all data that can be used to track commercial and advertising behavior or preferences.
They are also used to reveal our religious, political, moral preferences, etc..
They can obtain photos of us, access publications we made on our social networks and turn them into their own or directly hack them and issue a different message than the original one that we had made with other profiles.
Cookies also allow access to meteorological data that can be used to persuade us of actions directly directed at us without our noticing.
All these reports are shared or sold by Internet sites that We visit people or companies that are engaged in commercial, political or other activities.
Although in 2012 a regulations in Europe about “cookies”, which says that there must be a pop-up window in which at the time of navigation you must inform us that cookies will be installed but we will be asked for our acceptance.
Although this European legislation exists, it is not always complied with, so we must be careful and permanently delete these spy files from our browsers.
Steps to delete cookies from all your browsers from your Android mobile phone
Our mobile phones are not exempt from the installation of cookies in the browsers we use. That is why we want to show you the steps you need to take to delete these files and have better personal protection and battery performance. We have focused our analysis on most important browsers that exist today:
In Edge
In order to delete information that was installed without our consent in Microsoft Edge, we will follow the following procedure:
- We are going to “Plus“
- We click on the wheel of “Setting“
- We choose at this time “Clear browsing data“
- And we select “Choose what to erase“
- We choose from the box what type of data we want to delete,
- Then we have to select “Delete“
If we wish not to perform this task periodically, the system expects to do it automatically. For this we have to:
- Change the setting of “Always delete this data when closing the browser“
- Prefer to “Activated“
In Mozilla
If our browser is Mozilla for delete cookies from a certain site we will have to do this work:
- With our browser open we click on the button “Menu“
- We choose “Choices“
- And we select the panel of “Privacy & Security“
- We click on “Cookies and site data“
- A window will open in which we will have to choose “Manage data …“
- We write in the field “Search Websites“the name of the site that we want to delete cookies and all those that match our website will appear
- We choose “Delete all“
- We click on “Save Changes“
- At this time a window will appear for us to confirm “Delete cookies and site data:“
- And we click on “To accept“
If what we want is to clean all cookies from all sites that we have navigator, the steps will be the following:
- We click on the button “Menu“in our open browser
- Click on “Choices“
- We select “Privacy & Security“
- We choose the option “Clean data…“
- We mark the two options we have in “Cookies and site data” Y “Cached web content“
- We click on “Clean“
In chrome
When we have a Chrome browser, Google established as procedure to delete the “cookies” the following steps:
- We open the browser
- In the upper right we click on “Plus“, are the three vertical points
- We choose the option “More tools“
- We click on the part that says “Clear browsing data“
- We choose the time interval that we want to delete or if we want to delete all the data we will have to choose the option “All periods“
- We check the boxes “Cookies and other site data” Y “Cached files and images“
- Finally, we click on “Clear the data“
If what we want is to delete cookies by default we will have to choose after the configuration option the following steps:
- Click on “Advanced configuration“
- We choose “Website settings“
- And then “cookies“
- It is time to deactivate the option “Allow websites to save and view cookie data“
In Opera
When we use Opera as a browser and we want to delete the spy files that exist or were hosted in it we will have to proceed as follows:
- We click on “Menu“
- Later we choose “Tools“
- We select “Delete personal information“
- We choose the option “Detailed options“
- We select “Erase all tracks“
- In this step we have to choose if we only want to delete cookies or all the private data that we have in these options. Assuming that we only want to eliminate the “cookies” we will have to uncheck the boxes for the rest of the private data options
- Click on “Remove“