My apologies for going off-topic...But imo, to much is being made about cookies. I monitor my cookies and from time to time, I will look at the files themselves to see what is in them. Cookies are simply a tool...they may be used for good or for bad. Avoiding all sites that use cookies is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cookies don't "read" your hard drive ­ in other words, they can't read other documents or files you have stored on your hard drive. On the other hand...there are some loopholes in IE and probably netscape, I don't know because I don't use netscape very often. There are some loopholes that could allow 'malicious code' to be executed. I highly encourage anyone running windows to keep an eye on this: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. From here you can download patches as new vulnerabilities are addressed. Here are some websites you may wish to read to get more information on cookies: http://www.microsoft.com/info/cookies.htm (Microsoft's FAQ) http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/970226-2.html (Netscape's FAQ) http://www.cookiecentral.com/ A very good site that addresses the good side and the bad sides of cookies Meg -----Original Message----- From: charles mills [mailto:cmills@ipa.net] Sent: Sunday, December 19, 1999 4:15 AM To: HALL-L@rootsweb.com Subject: cookies i agree with the gentleman about all the cookies ancestry .com sets. i counted 13 cookies the last time i tried to log on. i want to get on line NOT ACCEPT COOKIES ALL TIME..i have CANCELED my subscription with them. what's on my computer is MY business