Topic: Cookies

[catweazle]

Hello everyone, what a great resource this, it's good to find a place where you can find help solving your problems and even find people sharing your problem.Great stuff.

  Well here's my problem/query. I have a "data" box in my cookie folder named index. I can't delete it, erase it, or shred it, because i'm told it is in use by someone/something else.
  Can i/Should i /how can i/ get rid of it?
   many thanks in advance.

[Clive]

I don't allow cookies on my computer because they can be used to plant all sorts of malware such as data loggers and trojan horses.  Have you downloaded Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
which should remove it without any problem.  

Then download CookieWall  http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/cookie.htm
and set it to alert you each time a cookie is dropped on your machine.  You will be horrified at the number.  Just refuse them all. If you discover that your cookie is important, then you can tell CookieWall to always accept it.

[Clive]

Oops, I forgot to say    Catweazle.

[joudi]

Hi catweazle and welcom here.

I think it's impossible to delete "INDEX.DAT" file, as it's a part of windows itself.

Here are some information to make us understand better about them.

Edited to add these links:

http://smartprotector.com/eraser/deleteindex.htm

http://www.internet-washers.com/evidence-washer/index_dat.html

[Clive]

It will still be perfectly safe to use Ad-Aware because it won't delete anything that is required by Windows.   8)

[chorleydave]

Hi Catweazle.  

Index.dat files are completely useless and should be removed, although they will immediately start to rebuild themselves.  Every time you visit a website, a cookie is put on your system and a record of the website is kept on your hard drive in Temporary Internet Files and History.  These are know as "Internet Tracks" - anyone can look in your History and see what websites you have been on.  To put it simply, an index.dat file is like a database and keeps a record of everything that is in your cookies folder, history folder etc.  Every time you visit a website, another line is added to the index.dat file.

However, if you have any sense, you will empty your hard drive of cookies, Temporary Internet Files etc as a matter of good housekeeping.  Unfortunately, this does not alter the contents of the index.dat file, therefore, as well as being useless, it is always out of date.  The only sure way I have found to delete these pesky things is to remove them when Windows is not running.

1) Turn off your computer and put a Windows 98 boot disk in the floppy drive (a: drive).

2) Let the floppy start the computer and wait until you are at the C:> prompt.

3) At the C:> prompt type the word delete followed by a space and then C:

followed by (on a Windows 98 or ME machine)

\WINDOWS\Cookies\index.dat
\WINDOWS\History\index.dat
\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files\index.dat

i.e.

delete c:\windows\cookies\index.dat

On a Windows 2000 or XP machine

\Documents and Settings\\Cookies\index.dat

\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat

\Documents and Settings\\Local
 Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat

i.e.

delete c:\Documents and Settings\\Cookies\index.dat

However, all this will do is give you a clean index.dat file and it will start again from the beginning as soon as you go on the internet.

[catweazle]

Thanks guys, i was a little concerned that i couldn't delete it, as i was under the impression that everything in your cookies folder was safe to delete.Thanks again.