This is fourth in a series of articles highlighting reasons why we need a new model for anti-virus and security solutions.

Reason #3: Security Software Testing Ever ask yourself following question as you’re standing in aisle at CompUSA or Best Buy: how well will this piece of software work with my other programs? Probably not. There is a high expectation that whatever piece of software you buy will work acceptably on your computer and won’t infringe on other programs.

Games, word processors, spreadsheets, music players are just those types of self-contained software programs that you wouldn’t expect any trouble from. And for most part, you don’t experience problems.

Security software, on other hand, by its very nature is more invasive and more likely to intrude on your way of computing. First and foremost, all good anti-virus software packages install on-access/on-demand scanning. This means that every time you start up a program, every time you access a document or spreadsheet, every time you access a directory in Explorer, anti-virus program will scan it for viruses. Unfortunately, consequence of this is that it slows down your computer. Unfortunately still, all vendors set on-access/on-demand scanning up as default when you install software. They have to.

When you install security software it has to install itself in such a way that it will always have upper hand when new programs are run on a PC. Why? For simple reason that you are installing this software to protect you from bad software. Security software tries to analyze anything you do on your computer and decide if it is a good thing or not.

No, this article isn’t about some new, lose-20-pounds-in-a-week, certified-by-some-tan-Southern-California-doctor diet. It’s about cookies on your computer - what they are, why they are there, and what to do about them. Computer cookies actually have quite a bit in common with their baked counterparts - some are good, some are bad, and they have expiration dates.

Cookies are small text files that a server places onto your hard drive whenever you access a given domain. Cookies typically contain information that website uses to either customize page you are viewing or otherwise make your web browsing experience more convenient and enjoyable. The information is stored on your hard drive and accessed whenever you go back to website that originally gave you cookie. They usually include an expiration date at which point they will be erased from your computer - it could be when you close your browser; or hours, days, months, or years after it is placed. Some don’t expire at all. At time of this writing I had a cookie stored on my computer that wasn’t set to expire until Wednesday, February 25th, 2195 at 3:45:13 am - I deleted it.

Before you run out to your browser’s options and delete and block all cookies, let me mention a few common uses of cookies:

* Cookies store information for ‘shopping carts’ at online stores. When you select an item and place it in shopping cart, a cookie is created to remember item and price so that you can keep shopping. When you are done shopping you simply click button to check out and site accesses information stored in cookies to complete your order.

* Cookies can be used to remember logins and passwords. While this initially sounds a little disheartening, purpose is really to save you time. Sites will remember information for you so you don’t have to type it in each time you want to access information.

* Cookies help websites customize their content and layout for you. If you are a diehard fan of local college’s basketball team, and you always access stats and score from game at a website, that site might use a cookie to send you straight to your team’s page.

* Cookies help identify whether you have already visited a site. They can also count how many times you have visited site in a given period of time.