Firefox what are all those cookie.txt files about, and which cookie.txt is the real thing?

rn...@lternet.edu

unread,

May 16, 2007, 4:41:16 PM5/16/07

to

Hi there,

I'm running Firefox 1.5.011 on Windows XP, SP2, all patches applied.

I had supposed that Firefox cookies are stored only in files
cookies.txt in a users' profiles.

However, a complete search of my hard disk for cookies.txt revealed
several locations, most were in my own user profiles directory under
"\Documents and Settings\Wolfgang\Application Data\", and there in the
directories

Phoenix\Profiles\default\tyhvk1vw.slt

Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hs82kous.default

Real\RealPlayer

One cookies.txt was in
"\Documents and Settings\Wolfgang\Recent"

and one was in

"\Program Files\Spinner Plus\Program"

The first cookies.txt, the one in Phoenix, is about 25 KB in size, but
according to the file modification date is about a year.

All other cookies.txt files are only about 1 or 2 KB in size, too
small to be real.

So what are all those cookie.txt files about, and which cookie.txt is
the real thing?

Thanks,
Wolfgang
Goleta, CA

Lou

unread,

May 16, 2007, 8:33:25 PM5/16/07

to

My active cookies,txt for Firefox is over 100K and is in
.....\firefox\profiles\.... Many others which I do not care about.

BTW I had several in "backup" folders but all date from 2006 (why?)

Lou

EE

unread,

May 17, 2007, 1:51:03 PM5/17/07

to

How on earth did you get a cookies.txt file of over 100K?
I have 3 cookies.txt files. One for Thunderbird (why?), one for
Firefox, and one backup copy for Firefox. My Firefox cookie file is 2K
in size.
Every so often, Windows XP goes bonkers and trashes my Firefox cookie
file. Why is that? I just checked the Firefox cookies file and found
it reset to empty. I had to restore the backup. Firefox for Mac does
not do that.

G. R. Woodring

unread,

May 19, 2007, 12:57:19 PM5/19/07

to

Firefox used to be Firebird and before that it was Phoenix. You have apparently
not used it for a year so you can probably remove that profile. Run the Firefox
profile manager and delete it from there (if it shows up in the list of profiles).

The one in "Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hs82kous.default" is probably your current
set of cookies.

I believe RealPlayer has it's own browser and just uses the same file name to
store cookies. Nobody has copyrighted "cookies.txt", yet :-)

The one in "\Documents and Settings\Wolfgang\Recent" is actually just a shortcut
. You probably opened cookies.txt in notepad or some text editor.

I have no idea what Spinner Plus is, but probably it just uses the "cookies.txt"
file name for some purpose. Not related to Firefox.

HTH

--
G. R. Woodring

squaredancer

unread,

May 19, 2007, 5:00:51 PM5/19/07

to

On 19/05/2007 18:57, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused G. R. Woodring
to generate the following:? :

you will find (as the OP has noticed :-( ) cookies.txt all through the
Windaft installation - neither rhyme nor reason seems to prevail!
Presumably, some URLs put cookies into the "default" Windaft locations,
thinking that all users are with IE. A simple win-search for Cookies and
Cookies.Txt will find them!

Spinner Plus is most likely the old Spinner Radio, which was taken over
- and *MURDERED* - by AOELL. If the OP doesn't use Spinner any more,
that can also be deleted!

If in doubt (and you know what you want to keep) it is easiest to delete
*ALL* cookies and let the sites re-instate them, as and when required.
You will have to know your login details for some sites (Bank,
Insurance, Software registrations are examples), so be careful when
doing it!

reg