Stan wrote:
1. I just opened DM and there is an asterisk in the Domain
field. The
choices across the top include Permissions and Form Data. Form
Data is
selected and there are hundreds of entries listed. What are
these and
what can I do with this list of entries?
These are values you entered in website forms. These are stored
globally, per field name, rather than per site. That's why they
are
available under the asterisk pseudo-domain.
The Permissions tab is mostly there because you need a way to
define new
permissions (the the bottom of that tab when it's active) even
if you
haven't stored any other data for a specific domain.
2. When I look at cookies from some domain that I have never
heard of, I
presume this is someplace that I must have been. Can I remove
these
cookies safely?
It's your data. You can remove whatever you want, but some
sites might
stop working properly when their cookies are gone.
BTW: Domains you never heard of are probably from partner
websites, ad
hosters etc.
3. I clicked on lowes.com ( site I go to now and then). It
shows three
variations: www7.lowes.com, www.lowes.com, and lowes.com.
Permissions is
active. Why do I get three variations?
Because they are not necessarily the same. Often they are, but not
always. Each domain may host and deliver completely different
websites.
What is www7 about?
Probably part of a CDN (Content Delivery Network) or similar,
i.e. to
distribute users/requests over different subservers for load
balancing
purposes or performance improvements.
My choices for each of these three entries are: Use Default,
Allow,
Allow for
Session, and Block. What is Default?
The default you set for that kind of permissions. See Preferences.
4. In general, how do I determine what these domains are?
Totally depends on your browsing habits, i.e. up to you.
Tendency on unknown ones is to remove them and block them
forever.
That is completely up to you (i.e. your character, liking,
level of
mistrust etc.).
5. What is the difference between Cookies and Permissions?
I would have thought that's pretty self-explanatory. Cookies
are bits of
information stored on your computer. Permissions include (but
are not
limited to) cookies permissions, i.e. settings that allow or deny
storing cookies for certain domains.
It would be
helpful to have a discussion of each of the four headings
(i.e. Cookies,
Permissions, Preferences, Passwords that specifically explains
what each
one is and discusses things that one might want to do with/to
each one.
Cookies: See which/whether cookies you have for each domain,
check their
contents and optionally delete ones.
Permissions: Settings per domain, like whether storing cookies,
loading
images, saving passwords, opening pop-up windows etc. should be
allowed
or denied.
Preferences: Things like per-domain site zoom and last upload
directory.
Passwords: Should be obvious (includes MailNews passwords!).
You can
show passwords, too.
6. Maybe there could be a discussion of how to handle things like
Cookies and Permissions...... What is each one. What can be
done with
it. Hints about things that can be removed.
AFAIK you can remove any entry that is visible in the Data
Manager,
except for the asterisk pseudo-domain.
7. What is the relationship between how I set parameters in
Edit/Preferences/.... and how I set parameters in Data Manager?
Preferences is for changing defaults, while per-domain settings
are
reflected in the Data Manager.
HTH
Jens
