Cookies are small pieces of information used for several different purposes by websites. In this article you can read about how to delete cookies in the 3 major browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox. In addition, you can read about why it is a good idea to delete your cookies from time to time.
In general, it is not very important to delete your cookies. In most cases, it is only necessary if a given website is not displayed correctly (due to cookies) or if you don’t want other users of your computer to know about the websites you have visited.
The main reasons for deleting cookies are:
- That websites are not displayed correctly
- “Covering your tracks” (so other users of your computer cannot see which websites you have visited)
It’s a good idea to delete your cookies from time to time – especially because, as mentioned, they can prevent websites from displaying correctly. In addition, too many cookies can in some cases slow down the browser.
Deleting cookies in browsers
You can delete cookies manually or let your computer do it automatically – and the latter is the most practical solution in most cases.
Manual deletion
The shortcut keys Ctrl + Shift + Delete can be used to delete all cookies in the major browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Opera (unfortunately the shortcut keys do not work in Safari). Note: If you want to delete individual cookies, you should read our guides to deleting cookies in the individual browsers below (under the section ‘Changing your computer settings’).
Changing your computer settings
How you change or adjust your cookie settings depends on the browser you are using – i.e. the procedures differ in individual browsers. The same applies if you want to delete individual cookies rather than all of them.
In the articles below you can read more about how to change your computer’s cookie settings and delete individual cookies:
- Guide: Delete cookies in Internet Explorer
- Guide: Delete cookies in Google Chrome
- Guide: Delete cookies in Mozilla Firefox
The only way to avoid cookies is to use the browser’s ‘private’ feature, which is available in all recent versions of the major browsers.