As a user of many anti-spyware applications over the years, one item has always bothered me when removed by antispyware applications. That item is "tracking" cookies. Many people in the industry know what cookies are, and how they can be used, but I do not think my parents would know anything about cookies. In my opinion, the industry has created a scare tactic in order to make a "problem" seem worse than it really is. I see this a lot when people are reporting that one program is better than another in respect to cookies. I really do not see how someone can make that argument. I can write a program which deletes n+1 files if I want until I reach a point where there are no more files to delete.

So why is this a problem?? Users do not know what files are good or bad, and therefore rely on the application to determine this for them. But if I am the programmer for another application, I could delete all good and bad files and then say... " We delete more files than Product X." The end user then says... "Of course..I want the other product...more is better!!" These users will then end up losing some settings which were never malicious in the first place. This leads me to the last thought...

Cookies by themselves are not malicious; they are text files with settings. Cookies can be a part of some application which calls on the text file in order to send information to a 3rd party, but end the end, they are only text files. In order for "tracking" cookies to be of use, a corresponding application needs to be running in the background and grab information off this file. I think this is where anti-spyware applications need to be focusing their efforts - removal of the application which uses these text files instead of blowing away all good and bad cookies.

I think the cookie argument will go on for a while, but as long as the end user cannot discern what is good versus what is bad, the industry needs to work on improving the logic of removing applications as opposed to deleting all cookies.