I use FireFox with AdBlockPlus and on Windows depend on SpyBot Search & Destroy to block bad sites. I've also loaded NoScript but haven't spent enough time with it to know the best way to use it - I usually end up enabling all the JavaScript on the sites I need to visit anyway (though I do block remote scripts when I can). It would be nice if that were somehow more automatic. (It sounds like Safari has some nice features that I should investigate more.)

I guess I just haven't worried much about cookies. I'm much more concerned about e-commerce sites keeping my CC number when I wish that they wouldn't. I'm waiting for PayPal or Amazon or ... to be hacked and to start receiving charges from some cracker in the Urals... :-(

Sure, advertisers and others who set cookies can know where I've been in some cases. But has this ever been used against a person? Don't they have such a mountain of data that knowing what any particular person is doing isn't worth the trouble? Grocery stores companies already know what food I buy, whether I've bought adult diapers or personal lubricants. Insurance companies know what medical conditions I have. Drugstores know about my illnesses and chronic conditions. CC companies know what stores I frequent. If the FBI or CIA want to know where we've been on-line, wouldn't it make more sense for them to tap the wire than look at our cookies? Presumably they're still slurping up everything as it is...

Inquiring minds. :-) Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.