In every field of interest, work, and education, there are always questions to be answered. Whether it’s a common question asked over and over by someone new to the area, an opinion question that could have lots of answers, or an in-depth, technical question only a very experienced person would be able to answer, there is usually someone willing to answer it. But how do you find these people? Or where can you go to share your knowledge on a particular subject with others? A forum is a perfect place to discover these things.

There are usually two types of forums. Some forums are just one page of a game, company, organization or project’s website. This type of forum is to ask questions about the website and what the website offers or represents. The questions that are asked on this forum are often directed to owners or developers of the website and are sometimes answered by frequent users or members of the website. Someone could use this forum to ask a question about a feature on another page that they don’t understand or that isn’t working properly. The website programmers or technicians can respond or be made aware of the technical issues on the site. On the other hand, forums of this type can also be used by the site owners to make announcements or ask questions of the user base. Check out Copper.net's forum here.

The other type of forum is not supplemental to the website, but the reason for the website. Some websites are created solely (or at least largely) for the purpose of hosting several forums on a subject of interest, like baseball, or a type of marketing. On these sites, there are usually a variety of forums on subtopics, making it easier to find questions asked on a certain element of the subject of interest. This is a great place to do some research. If you are new to a subject, you are likely to find frequently asked questions from the past to which you could benefit from reading the answers. If you don’t find a question that’s already been asked, you can add a new one of your own. This type of site is also a good place to brainstorm or share ideas with others who are experienced and interested in something you are. You can spend hours asking and answering questions on forums.

Although forums vary somewhat, they all contain some similar formatting. When you first enter a forum, you will see a list of questions you can click on to read and answer. At the top of this list, you will often find the stickies. These are the questions that people tend to ask over and over. They have already been answered and resolved, but they have been “stuck” to the top of the list so everyone will see them. This is to minimize the amount of people asking the exact same question that has already been discussed and answered in the past. You should read the stickies if you are new to a forum or the subject to keep from asking something that has already been asked dozens of times before.

The rest of the questions listed are open questions, usually listed newest to oldest in the time that they were posted. When you click on an open question, you will see the original question, and (if any) the responses from others to the question. As you scroll down the replies, you will probably notice these elements:
1. Replies: There will be both replies to the original question, and replies to other replies (if someone was to disagree or wished to expand on the response).
2. Quoted text: Usually in italics, this is a way for someone to respond to or expound on something that was already said.
3. User identification: Each individual reply has a screen name, photo, signature, possibly some links to other websites. This is a way for a user to represent themselves.
4. User rating. In order to know how experienced or reputable an answer is to your question, every user has some sort of rating that shows how long this member has been asking or answering questions. You may also see a rating of the person’s reputation that others have given them because they answered the question so well.

Forums are a great place to connect with others from all over the world about a common interest to gain insight, learn about new topics and techniques, or share your knowledge with others.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net. Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

Social networking is an online network of friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances that allows individuals to share information, different types of media, and stay connected in an informal non-intrusive way.  Here are the top most popular social networking sites, what they do, and how you can join!

1. Facebook. Not only is this the most popular social networking site, it’s also the second most popular website globally. Originally, Facebook was created for college students to network with classmates within their school. Eventually, the popularity and demand to join allow new networks in, like high schools and businesses. Today, Facebook is open to anyone who wants to join. Much like other social networking sites, Facebook allows you to post blog-like entries, write messages on other people’s profile pages, play games chat with others who are online, etc.

Facebook is a great outlet for the sharing of information.  Whether it’s a note, photo album, a group or page you become a part of, you can let people know what’s going on in your life, share memorable moments, or spread awareness of a cause or idea.

Facebook has become extremely popular just in the last few years. There are currently 350 million active users on Facebook, according to statistics reported by the site. All you need to do to join Facebook is set up a free account using your email address. You can also use your email address to find friends who have a Facebook account already, and invite people who haven’t yet joined. Find out more at www.facebook.com.

2. MySpace. Although MySpace has been around the longest of the three sites listed here, it is currently the second most popular social networking site, and is losing momentum. MySpace is much more popular in the US than it is globally, ranking number 6 most popular in the US, and 14 globally, according to Alexa.com.

Since its launch in 2002, MySpace was the introduction to social networking for many of its members and is most likely responsible the momentum for the popularity of social networking for many Internet surfers, especially in the US.

The site is much like Facebook as far as the ability to network with friends, share photos, and communicate in different ways. The most obvious difference between the two is the visual/audio playground MySpace users enjoy. Each profile page can be designed and formatted to the colors, backgrounds, fonts, and layout of the user’s choice. A music playlist of favorites can also be added to play when a person visits the user’s profile page. To create your own MySpace account, check out www.myspace.com.

3. Twitter. This site puts a whole new spin to social networking. Although some of the typical activities can be shared on Twitter, the focus is keep the communication short and simple. Basically, a twitter account consists of a series of entries that are no more than 140 characters long. It just a thought, a note, a link, a sentence—to let people know what you are up to. Also, instead of requesting someone to add you as friend to connect, you simply “follow” whomever you wish—and anyone can follow you.

This is becoming very popular for people who like to keep in touch on the go. Even celebrities have time to keep up with a Twitter account—which is what helped make Twitter so popular. Another perk of the simple layout is that it’s easy to “tweet” from your mobile phone. To set up your own Twitter account, g to www.twitter.com.

Whether you like to share your stuff, be creative, or keep it simple, social networking has a niche for you!

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net. Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

If you are running Windows XP on your computer, you have a few choices about whether you should upgrade to a new operating system. Here are a few choices to consider:

1. Stick with XP. After all, it’s what you’re used to. Many people still have Windows 98 on their computer and will probably never upgrade. You might be considered stuck in your ways and missing out after a while, but it will be several years before XP is considered obsolete. Microsoft will continue to support XP until April of 2014, so it’s not impractical to keep XP until then. Even after Microsoft no longer supports XP, you can still use it. Web applications and new programs may not be compatible with your computer and your computer will eventually perform significantly slower than newer ones, but if you are comfortable with what you have and don’t use it much, you might not have any problems. If you do, you can always upgrade then.

XP currently holds over half of the market share of all operating systems (including Mac and Linux) combined. As you can imagine, no one’s going to try to get rid of XP quickly, so you should have to rush either. Keep in mind though, that it might be helpful to at least learn about Windows 7 and how to use the new layout and features. You might learn that it’s not so bad and decide to upgrade. Even if you don’t, other people and businesses, like libraries or your workplace will start using Windows 7, so you don’t want to be clueless when using those computers.

2. Upgrade to Vista. If you think it would be better to upgrade one version at a time, it might sound reasonable, but it might not be worth it. Although buying a Vista operating system is less expensive than Windows 7, you will end up spending more when you eventually upgrade to Windows 7. Vista and 7 are almost identical, except 7 has improved Vista in many ways. So why switch to a new, but faulty operating system when a better one is available. If your goal is to save some money, just wait a year or so to buy Windows 7, and most likely the price will have reduced some. XP is still supported by Microsoft for three more years, so you have time.

3. Upgrade to Windows 7. This is what Microsoft would of course prefer for you to do. They even offer an “XP mode” that will allow you to run older programs that were designed to work with XP. This way you don’t have to miss out on everything you used before. On the other hand, switching to Windows 7 also means your computer will be compatible to all the newest, coolest gadgets and applications that are currently available. Once you make the switch and get accustomed to the new layout and features, you rarely miss the old versions.

Keep in mind that many computer technicians warn against immediately upgrading to the newest version of anything from Microsoft right away, like the operating systems or Internet Explorer. Many times, hackers create viruses and bugs to attack Microsoft systems, because far more people use Microsoft than any other operating system. This means that Microsoft products tend to have more security vulnerabilities. Also, Microsoft often has bugs and kinks to work out of a newly released product, so many techs will recommend waiting a year after the initial release date until you use the newest version of Microsoft products.

4. Switch to a different company. You may not have realized this, or not given it much thought, but there are many operating systems other than Windows. Although a very small number of computer users use anything but Windows, Macintosh (Apple) being the next largest user group, it’s certainly a possibility. Keep in mind, though, that some applications and websites are not compatible with operating systems other than Windows, although marked improvements have been made recently to change this.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net. Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

If you like to write, express your opinions, or share your creativity with others, you may be interested in starting your own blog. Internet services have opened doors to connecting and sharing with others simply and easily from your home! One of the most popular ways to share events going on around you, or express your thoughts and creativity is through a weblog, or blog. They are usually free and easy to set up a new account. Here is a step-by-step guide to the easiest way to create your own blog:

1. Find a host. Unless you want to create your own website, you’re going to have to find a website that will host your blog. In other words, you need to find a website that will let you have your own page to update, etc., but they do the work of saving and displaying your page (along with the collection of other pages from bloggers like you) on the Internet.

There are many sites that host blogs for free. You can ask your friends for input if you want to be in the same blog community that they are, or you can search online for blog sites. Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, Weebly.com, Xanga.com, and LiveJournal.com are among the top most popular free blog hosts. Also, many social networking sites, like Facebook and Myspace have a section for writing notes or blog entries, so they too could be used as a blog, but these websites are not focused on blogging. Sometimes your internet provider, like Copper.net, will host blog accounts. Go to the member’s homepage or contact your ISP to see if this option is available for you.

2. Create a new account. In order for you to have a blog page, you’ll need an account with a username and password. Your username usually ends up being the primary name for the blog, e.g., “user_name.blogger.com” would be the url to your blog and probably show up in one or two places on the site. You’ll want to pick a username that fits you well and a password you can remember.

To create a new account, you’ll often see a “sign up” or “new member” link on the home page of the blog site. You can probably find a help section for more information. When you click to start a new membership, you will probably need fill out a form with some basic information, like your email address and what you want as your username and password. These forms are often very simple.

3. Select your blog title and (if available) subtitle. Blog titles are often where you can be creative, interesting, and unique, then the subtitle kind of explains what the blog is about. Think about what you want people to know about your blog from first glance. Is it going to be a little bit of everything? Are you going to focus on a specific topic or hobby of yours? Let people know in a unique and interesting way. You may want to browse through other people’s blogs for some ideas and inspiration—perhaps of what NOT to do too!

4. Choose your colors and layout. This is the part where you can really set the mood and create the first impression you want. When people first come across your blog, this will be the first things they’ll see. A dark background with deep colors can present a dark and mysterious mood, a bright colored layout can bring a happy or exotic feel, and a neat neutral design can come across in a professional tone.

Most host sites will have several predesigned themes to pick from. This is a good place to start, especially while you take some time to learn how to make design edits. Each site is different, so you’ll have to learn how to change backgrounds, colors, and widgets specifically on this site. There should be plenty of help pages to show you how to do everything. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure you what you want your layout to look like, you can always change it later! Sometimes its fun to go with a completely different look some months into your blogging.

5. Write your first entry! You can write a short piece just to see what it’ll look like and let people know you’ve just started, or you can jump right in with your first feature-length blog entry! Be yourself! Have fun and be creative. The important thing is expressing yourself, not worrying about how many people will read it! You can always make edits to posts later, but don’t forget, as soon as you hit “publish”, your entry will be open to anyone who has Internet service, so you might want to read it over for any grammar/spelling mistakes at least once before you publish!

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

Internet service has opened doors to making information, education, and entertainment available on demand. Always readily available and easily assessable, websites are the new wave of fast easy access to almost anything. Blogs are an excellent example. Short for “weblogs” blogs can be anything from a personal journal or diary to a professional analysis of news and trends in a large variety of genres. Some people blog as professions, others for fun. Either way, blogs are an entertaining and popular way to get information, news, updates, and commentaries on the topics that interest you—or provide an interesting viewpoint on daily activities and other life topics.

Since blogs are just written entries and not usually representing any business or organization, they aren’t often edited or pass inspection of anyone before they get published. Therefore, you can’t always expect them to be professional and reputable. They can, however, represent a business or characterize the well-thought out and researched opinion of well-spoken and knowledgeable individuals. These are usually the type of blogs that have the most visitors, incoming links, and subscribers, so the blogs getting the most attention have reason to be popular. They are probably good resources—at least for getting insight on other points of view, etc. Here are some of the most common types of blogs:

*Personal Diaries
Many people enjoy keeping a blog of entries on personal events, thoughts, or as an outlet for their creativity. Sometimes it’s a way to keep friends and family informed, others simply want to express themselves and sometimes keep their identity anonymous. Personal diaries might even be a collection of poems, pictures, and the like.

This type of blog can be very interesting and inspiring. It’s a way to see the world through another person’s point of view—from across the country or even the globe! You can find blogs such as these as a source of entertainment or to learn about a certain type of lifestyle, career, region, etc., from someone who experiences it from day to day.

*Business Blogs
Blogs can be a useful form of marketing or advertising. Whether a blog offers advice, describes services, or posts entries about related content that would be useful to customers, business blogs’ primary function is to attract new customers, assist current customers, or attract business or links from affiliates.

Regardless of the “marketing” nature of business blogs, they are often helpful and legitimate resources. Unlike a personal blog, these blogs must be accountable to the business they represent, so they are often reviewed by others or must conform to stricter standards. Thus, the blog has a higher probability of containing usable and reliable content.

*Professional Blogs
Believe it or not, there are a number of people who can make a living from blogging. Whether people or companies need these bloggers to post articles or entries for marketing purposes or they simply have a valuable, professional insight that can be a useful and coveted resource for other companies.  A professional blog could also be an insightful informational blog written personally by a professional that only or mostly includes professional topics. These can be useful to those who want or need that “inside information” for that profession or topic.

Professional blogs often get a lot of interest and attention because the writer is famous or at least well known in their field. Most people read these blogs to gain from the wisdom, experience, and insight of someone of this person’s standing. They will usually be focused on a genre, profession, or topic that will most likely be of interested to a certain group of readers. They could be about fashion, politics, sports, finance, business, marketing, etc.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

The Internet provides a vast variety of entertainment. Its options are nearly endless and is expanding and improving daily. With the development of broadband services, the gaming and entertainment world online has revolutionized from its early beginnings only a short decade ago. Many people, unfortunately, do not have access to broadband and many real-time online games require higher speeds than dial-up can provide.

One type of popular online games today are role playing games, or RPG's. This means that each player is playing the part of a character in a virtual world. Many times, the game sequences in real time, and dozens or even hundreds of people can also play the same game from all over the world, and the events of the game are happening at the same time for everyone. Dial-up and other slow connections often cannot display passing events in real time because of latency, the delay experienced because of long loading times. RPG's can be played on dial-up if it is not in real time, or if the graphics are simple and easy enough for dial-up to load. An example of this is GuildWars.com.

There are many fun and engaging games that can be played on a dial-up connection, many of which are very popular for dial-up and broadband users alike. The key to finding a dial-up compatible game is to look for flash games. Flash games are games that are loaded by adobe flash player and are run from the website itself. This means that once the game is loaded, it runs completely without using your Internet connection. Usually, flash games do not require you to leave the webpage you are on when it loads. The means you can play the games offline! The following are some websites that offer free online flash games that work great with dial-up Internet connections:

* Addictinggames.com

* Flashgames247.com

* Games.Yahoo.com

* Miniclip.com

* Popcap.com

These are only a few of the hundreds of gaming websites. Other gaming websites can be found by searching for “flash games” or “free online games” on a search engine like google.

The games may take much longer to load on dial-up than they would on broadband connections, but once they do, you can play for hours without experiencing any problems because of having a slow connection. In fact, you can even disconnect from the Internet after the game has loaded, and continue playing the game from the cached webpage. This means that you don't have to tie up your phone line in order to play for extended periods of time.

Here are a few other tricks and tips:

• Save your favorite games to your bookmarks or favorites list so you can access them quickly.

• Load a new game on a separate window while you play another game. This way, you don't have to sit and wait for the new game to load. It can load in the background while you are playing on another window.

• There are hundreds of gaming websites, and some are better quality or load games more quickly than others. If you find a game you like, but the game window is very small or takes too long to load, run a search query for that game's name to find other websites that have that game. Chances are, you'll find a website that plays the game better than the other one.

• Minimize a game window rather than closing it. This way, if you have other work to do or need to leave the computer for some time, you can set your computer to “Stand by” and come back later. You can then open the window you have minimized and your game will still be there. You won't have to start over or wait for it to load again.

Don't let having dial-up get you down, there's still so much fun to be had!

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

Every time your computer opens a webpage, it requests to retrieve pictures, images, and other data from a website to your computer. This process can take some time, especially on heavily loaded websites or if you're using a slow Internet connection like dial-up. To save time and be more efficient, your computer saves many of the files that download from each website to your harddrive. This makes several things possible:

* When you revisit a site you have already been to, your computer needs only to search for new information or changes to the website, and load all of the identical features (like images, logos, and layouts that don't change) from your computer.

* Sites you visit frequently will load because it does not need to re-download the entire site, every time you visit.

* When you click the “back”, “forward”, and “refresh” buttons on your browser toolbar, you can quickly reload pages you are currently visiting.

* Features like “History” used temporary Internet files to keep track of sites you visited recently, in case you want to go back to something you visited earlier that day or up to several weeks ago.

* You can view entire “stored” websites on your browser when you are not on the Internet. They may not have the most up-to-date information, but you will still be able to view information and use features that were loaded from a previous online visit.

* Some websites that have browser-based flash games can be played offline, because the temporary Internet files have saved this content to your computer. This means you can play some of your favorite games for hours without using online time on your Internet service.

Temporary Internet files are not always a good thing. It's nice to save the information from websites you visit frequently, but eventually, your computer will be full of saved files from hundreds of websites you only visited once and may not visit again. There is no need to keep this information.

Many times a technician will direct you to your Internet Options and have you delete all your temporary Internet files and cookies in order to free your browser of the clutter of all this unnecessary saved information from visited sites over time. This sometimes helps browsers run faster, and aviod error messages like “This page cannot be displayed”, etc.

This can be a quick fix that you can do if you are having problems with your browser. It may not solve your problem, but it never hurts to try—plus, cleaning out your browser is a good thing to do—especially if you do a lot of surfing.

• First, click Tools at the top of your browser.
• Then click “Internet Options” (or maybe “Options” if you are not using Internet Explorer)
• Then look for “Browsing History” or Temporary Internet Files”. Click the Delete or Delete Files button.
• If you click Delete, you will see a list of different types of stored information on your computer. You can select which you prefer to delete from here.

If you are using a browser other than Internet Explorer, the options will look slightly different. If you cannot find what you are looking for, you will find step by step instructions for most browsers on websites like wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache. Also, there are many downloadable tools that clean your computer of Internet files and cookies regularly that are stored deep in your computer that will still remain behind after a manual delete described above. This is usually not necessary unless you need to make sure no one ever knows what websites you have visited.

Many browsers now offer the ability to surf the Internet without saving any information to your computer in the first place. Internet Explorer 8's “In-Private Browsing”, Firefox's “Private Browsing”, Chrome's “Incognito Mode”, are all the same concept—surf the Internet without leaving a trace on your computer. This is one of the best ways to surf privately and not allow anyone to retrieve the information later.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

What Are Internet Cookies?

An Internet cookie is a text file that a website saves to your hard drive when you visit their site. This is helpful for websites to get an accurate representation of how many different people visit their site and how often. They can also make polls and surveys and ensure that no one is voting more than once.

It's also helpful to the visitor, for example, who want to save preferences. For example, if you like to check the weather and you enter your zip code, a cookie on your computer will notify the website that it's you that's looking at the webpage. They can automatically load the website with your location information in place. You don't have to reenter your zip code!

Here's another example of how cookies help you. If you check your email or log in to any other website, you can check to save your user name on your computer and it will be entered for you the next time you visit. Conveniences like shopping carts on online stores would not be possible without cookies. For many types of basic browsing and Internet uses, cookies are helpful and necessary.

How Internet Cookies Affect You

Since website store information about your searches, browsing practices, and purchases, it can be questionable whether cookies are really doing you a favor. Should you allow these website to gather this somewhat personal information? Well, for one thing, you are still anonymous. A cookie will just identify you as a string of letters and numbers. The only information it has is what you give it. For example, if you add your name and email address onto the website to register for their services, you are volunteering this extra information. Furthermore, if you use a free email account and a phone name, they still don't really know anything about you.

The worst thing that could happen from cookies having your information, or from registering your name and email on a website is that you might start getting unwanted email advertising. Unless you are a very private or overly cautious person, you will not suffer from allowing the websites you visit to store cookies on your computer.

Recommended Privacy Settings

There are differing options on what would be the best way to handle cookies. There are always going to be a few conspiracy theories going around about how terrible and unsafe the Internet is. The truth is that prominent Internet websites from reputable companies will often have a privacy policy to protect your information and only use it for their own marketing purposes (like recommending items similar to those you searched for or bought). ISP's and Internet browsers like Internet Explorer are constantly looking for ways to keep you safe and often block or warn you about harmful website. Most of the time, if you just use the default setting to handle your cookies, you will be safe and be able to use the Internet as you please.

There are two extremes when it comes to handling cookies. For example, you might be advised to not allow any cookies other than the ones from trusted sites whose privacy policy promises not to sell your personal information, and delete all your cookies once day/week/month, etc. This might sound like a great idea, but it is a lot of work, and, as mentioned in the previous section, is not really necessary unless you are overly concerned about your privacy. Furthermore, any time you begin placing stricter guards on your Internet surfing, you risk causing some features not to work properly, for example:

* If you don't allow session cookies, you might not be able to stay logged into your email long enough to finish writing your message and lose your content when you click send.

* If you block all cookies from incoming websites, some perfectly safe websites will not be able to load certain functions, or may not load at all. If you get a message on your browser saying that something like "this page cannot load because you are not accepting cookies", it means you must either add the site to your safe list or lower your cookies restrictions if you want that site to load.

*If you constantly delete cookies, websites will not be able to save log in information and preferences.

The other extreme to the recommendations for your Internet privacy is to allow all and every cookies, both first and third party cookies. This is not necessarily bad for you, because your safely on the Internet often correlates directly with what websites you go to. If you only surf on secure websites and only do basic browsing, like surfing, banking, and reading news, etc., you might never have any problems with privacy infringement. Sometimes, allowing all cookies, or deleting all your stored cookies is recommended by computer technicians if you are having problems viewing webpages because this is the easiest way to ensure that your browser settings or stored information is not causing the problem.

The best cookie settings depends on you and your surfing habits. For most users, leaving the cookies at the default settings and occasionally clearing all temporary Internet files is the best recommendation.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!

Internet cookies are often misunderstood as wretched little monsters that attach themselves to your computer so Internet hackers can spy on you! Thankfully this is not the case. A cookie is just a text file sent to your computer that saves basic information about you so the next time you visit the same website, it can retrieve the cookie from the website and recognize you as a returning visitor.

The idea of a website placing something on your hard drive to get information from you can sound a little scary. Some very private people have no interest in being recognized upon returning to a website and see this as an invasion to their privacy, regardless of the benefit that it could be to them. Usually, a cookie is only an identification method meant to benefit you, much like a person who runs a general store in a small town can be more helpful because he or she knows many of the customers and their preferences.

Sometimes, cookies also save information about the pages you visited, the searches you performed, and the items you bought while on a website. For example, an online store like Amazon noted that you often buy or search for books from the romance genre and would use this information to recommend other romance books when you visit the site again. This is a marketing tactic, but is still helpful to the customers.

The information that a website can gather from tracking the habits of its customers could become invasive. They could (and some do) sell their information (like shopping or surfing habits) and their email addresses to third parties, so they can send soliciting emails, or spam to your inbox based on searches or purchases you have made.

The following are a few ways to control cookies if you are highly concerned about the risk of becoming spammed with advertising from other parties. Keep in mind that none of these options are recommended or necessary for your safety. Most anti-virus programs and Internet browser filters are already designed to protect you from harmful websites and spyware. Also, these options will limit your use of the Internet and some may cause certain websites not to function correctly or at all.

* Check the privacy policy in the terms of service on websites you visit. Many reputable websites have privacy policies saying they will not sell your information to third parties. If this is the case, they should be safe to visit and allow any cookies from them.

* Don't register your personal information on websites. Many website require that you register and provide your email address to use certain features on their site. If you do not want your personal email address to be spammed, you can set up free email account to use for this purpose, like Yahoo Mail or Gmail, and use a name and address other than your own. You can also simply refuse to use these sites, but this could severely limit your shopping options.

* In your Internet Options, click on the Settings button under Browsing History (or Temporary Internet Files) and click Veiw Files. You can select all or some of the cookies that are stored on your computer and view or delete them as often as you like. This will not, however, prevent websites from reassigning a cookie to you if you visit their site again.

* Under the Privacy Tab of Internet Options, you will see a slider that has different levels that handle cookies. You can raise or lower the strictness of cookie handling here, as well as manually enter a list of website that you trust from which cookies are always allowed. If, after you have made these changes, you cannot veiw a webpage, you may need to add it to your allowed list or lower your privacy settings so the website can load properly

*If you don't want to use the slider, simply click the Advanced button on the Privacy Tab of Internet Options, and check "Override automatic cookie handling". Then choose specifically how to handle different types of cookies. First party cookies are from the website and third party cookies are from other websites that the website you are visiting uses. The "Prompt" option will ask your permission on each separate occasion that a website attempts to save a cookie on your computer.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!