How to Manually Delete Cookies in Internet Explorer

In this article, you will learn what browser cookies are, why browser cookies can be a potential privacy concern or security risk, and how to manually delete cookies in Internet Explorer web browsers on your Windows computer. Let’s get started!

What are browser cookies?

When you visit a shopping site, a banking site, or any website that may ask for personal information about you, these websites store small files on your computer’s hard drive called COOKIES. A cookie is a small ASCII text file passed on from the remote web server to your local web browser.

Why are cookies a privacy concern?

Cookies are typically used to store user preferences, website customization information, personal information such as user profile details, affiliate tracking codes, and even login information such as your user-name and password for a particular website, making cookies a potentially risky file to leave hanging around your computer, especially if you are using a public or shared machine.

Why It’s Important to Delete Cookies on Public Computers

Although cookies provide you with the convenience of not having to re-enter your credentials every time you visit a website, the private data they may store can represent a big security risk.

If you are using a publicly shared computer (at a library, a school lab, a coffee shop, at the office, or at an airport, for example) it is very important that you remove these cookies after you finish your work on that computer or your sign-in information may be compromised!

Why it’s not enough to just block cookies

“But my web browser let’s me block cookies when I browse, so why should I be concerned about manually deleting cookies?”

Yes, you can always block cookies so that the websites you visit won’t be allowed to set them, but this is not an ideal solution because some websites actually NEED cookies to be enabled in order for the site to function properly. For example, shopping websites or banking sites often need to set cookies to store ‘state’ information and other values necessary for the web application to work properly. So, depending on the websites you visit, you may need to have cookies enabled, so it’s important to have a way to delete these cookies when you need to.

How to Manually Delete Cookies in Internet Explorer Web Browsers…

Below is a list of different versions of Internet Explorer web browsers and instructions how you can MANUALLY DELETE COOKIES in Internet Explorer on Windows machines.

Why manually deleting cookies does not permanently erase their data!

Before we start, please be advised that manually deleting cookies using the methods described below DOES NOT PERMANENTLY REMOVE cookies from your computer and DOES NOT WIPE or ERASE the data the cookies contain!

This is because in order to make the deletion operation faster, Windows only MARKS the beginning of the ‘deleted’ file as ‘deleted’, and then sends the file into what’s known as the ‘FREE SPACE’ area. The entire actual contents of the file are still present and available on your hard drive (but are only hidden from view on the system) and this data can easily be recovered with many recovery software tools on the market today.

In order to permanently delete cookies from your computer you need a secure file shredding program such as AceErase File Shredder that can also shred cookies (by overwriting the entire cookie’s content with random patterns) so the cookie data will be permanently erased and unrecoverable.

Ok, let’s get started manually deleting cookies from your Internet Explorer browser on Windows (but please remember that these methods do NOT SHRED or PERMANENTLY ERASE the information contained in the cookies!).

How to Manually Delete Cookies in Internet Explorer 11, 10, 9

From the Desktop:

• Click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar or desktop to open Internet Explorer
• Click the Tools icon , point to Safety, and then click Delete browsing history.

Using the Keyboard Shortcut:

• Click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar or desktop to open Internet Explorer
• Click CTRL-SHIFT-DEL (press all keys at once)
• Un-check the box: Preserve Favorites website data
• Check the box: Cookies and website data
• Click the Delete button

How to Manually Delete Cookies in Internet Explorer 8

From the Desktop:

• Click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar or desktop to open Internet Explorer
• From the Menu bar, click Tools, then click Internet Options
• Then under the General Tab, under the Browsing History section, click Delete
• Un-check the box: Preserve Favorites website data
• Check the box: Cookies and website data
• Click the Delete button

Using the Keyboard Shortcut:

• Click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar or desktop to open Internet Explorer
• Click CTRL-SHIFT-DEL (press all keys at once)
• Un-check the box: Preserve Favorites website data
• Check the box: Cookies and website data
• Click the Delete button

Don’t want to go thru all this trouble?

Then just use AceErase Professional File Shredder and Internet History Eraser. It not only deletes cookies, it also shreds cookies before deleting them so they will not be recoverable. AceErase File Shredder makes internet history and computer activity clean up fast, convenient, and safe!

Also, AceErase is portable which means you can place it on a USB flash drive (and RUN it right from that same flash drive) so you can take it with you and use it on any Windows PC where ever and whenever you may need it.

Shred safely with AceErase!