Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

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ChrisGreaves
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Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I am looking for some way to preserve vital cookies, in a file that can be rolled in on command.

A Google search https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... my+cookies turns up plenty of results, some of which suggest that cookies are held in "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCookies", but this folder must be very well hidden.
I have the usual File Explorer settings (show hidden files, display extents etc.).
Untitled.png
EveryThing shows a slew of entries for "INetCookies", and the multiplicity of folders puts me off, even if I knew what to do with them.

I have stopped purging cookies with CCcleaner, so I expect my login account numbers etc to remain in place from day to day, but I find that as time goes by, login status to Eileens Lounge and other forums disappears despite my "Remember Me" checkboxes, online bank sites not only forget my account number but also that "I trust this device".

I seem to spend more time logging in to sites nowadays than actually using the sites. That is, I am now serving the computer, rather than the computer serving me; and that is not right.
Untitled2.png
I add that CCleaner, still installed, indicates that the site cookies (outlined) are well-remembered by CCleaner, although I think that just tells me that CCleaner once was told to remember them.


(signed) "Discouraged" of Bonavista.
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Last edited by ChrisGreaves on 26 Aug 2020, 20:35, edited 1 time in total.
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HansV
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by HansV »

Best wishes,
Hans

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

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HansV wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 20:34
It depends on the browser. See Where cookies are located in Windows 10, for all web browsers
Hi Hans.
I have found my FireFox (80.0/64) cookies file at C:\Users\Chris073\App Data\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\umpdus7z.default-release\cookies.sqlite

Pension day today, six financial accounts to check/balance, also two online forums to check for "New Posts", and I found that three online financial accounts and both forums (Eileen's is one) required me to Login again, and had ignored my "Remember Me" settings, so I pasted passwords from my Passwords.DOC and checked on, again, "I trust this device".

If I copy/paste the file "cookies.sqlite" to a safe folder (done!) and then tomorrow visit those sites and find that I have been forgotten, again, my theory is that if I quit the browser, copy my safe "cookies.sqlite" back into place and reopen the browser, those sites should all be remembered.
Is that correct?

If I do restore the "cookies.sqlite" and the sites do NOT remember me, then my theory is that the problem is not with my cookies file, but with the system, that is (a) six online sites or (b) Win10-2004 or (c) Firefox 80.0(64).

I use only Firefox to access the web, and all sites I visit are by bookmarked links in my Firefox browser toolbar.

If you or anyone else can think of a better test to determine just where the problem lies I'd be grateful.

I have one site (ScotiaBank) where the account number is remembered, so I paste in my password, click "SignIn" and the screen is re-presented so I paste in the password a second time, choose 'SignIn" a second time, and am allowed into the site. If I were paranoid I'd start to suspect that a key-logging malware had crept into my system.

There are a few forums that suggest Win10-2004 has generated this problem, but I do not know whether this is a mere 0.00001% of the Win10 population or a genuine bug, and I am too new to Win10 to recall whether this problem was a regular problem under Win7 (just two months ago).

Thanks
Chris
Last edited by ChrisGreaves on 28 Aug 2020, 13:07, edited 2 times in total.
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stuck
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by stuck »

ChrisGreaves wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 14:07
...I found that three online financial accounts... ...required me to Login again...
Surely that is how a bank website is supposed to behave? Are you saying that with Win 7 it was possible, by restoring cookies from a previous session, to access the site without having to log in?

I can't see how that would be possible. My bank website logs me out after about 5 mins of inactivity so even if I captured all the cookies in use before inactivity timed me out, when I restored those cookies the next day, they'd be dated and timed the day before and that would be interpreted as a day's worth of inactivity = log out.

Or am I missing something here??

Ken

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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by HansV »

Ken is correct, Chris...
Best wishes,
Hans

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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

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Hans is correct, Chris...
Leif

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

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stuck wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 14:50
...Or am I missing something here??
Hello Ken. The short answer is "yes", but the longer answer is probably "I didn't make myself clear"!
Surely that is how a bank website is supposed to behave? Are you saying that with Win 7 it was possible, by restoring cookies from a previous session, to access the site without having to log in?
Yes, that is how the bank is supposed to behave, except for Scotiabank (next paragraph).
And in Win7 (up to two months ago) I had to key in my password, and ONLY my password, whenever I accessed any one of these six financial institutions. That has been so for several years. I am not sure whether I have been losing Login data since Win10-2004 - there has been so much new stuff to observe that I was dazzled and wasn't paying attention to login problems.
I am OK with having to key/paste in my password for financial institutions, tax office and the like. But right now three of the six institutions do not remember my account number/name, and do not remember the "remember me" settings. It is one thing to key in your password each time you want to check your account balance; it is another thing to have to key in the account number AND the name of your first girlfriend AND click ON the checkbox "Remember Me" each and every time.

ScotiaBank is a special case (amongst six financial institutions) in that about 90% of the time it Remembers Me, so in theory all I need do is key/paste in my password and click on "SignIn". But 100% of the time (Remember Me or not), after I click on "SignIn" I have to key in my password a second time and click on "SignIn" a second time. Never a third time! I think that this is an issue with the ScotiaBank web site, but before I tear strips off them, I think I should isolate these other generic problems.
I can't see how that would be possible. My bank website logs me out after about 5 mins of inactivity so even if I captured all the cookies in use before inactivity timed me out, when I restored those cookies the next day, they'd be dated and timed the day before and that would be interpreted as a day's worth of inactivity = log out.
Quite So. The 3 or 5-minute interval is too short for my liking, but then I am at home now, and when I was in the Toronto Reference Library I would have been happy with ten seconds! My thoughts on the backup/restore cookies was that, in theory, the restored set should include account number and "remember me" and "trusted device", everything except the password, so that all I ever need do was key in a password to find out how little money I have (grin)

Only for ScotiaBank am I having problems with passwords, and then only that I have to key in my password TWICE, every time. Never Once, never Thrice. Always twice.

For everything else, it is as if cookies are being deleted/misplaced for those 6+2 web sites.

Eileen's Lounge et al. are special cases in that, in theory, they carry my Log-In over days and days - except that Eileen's Lounge seems to drop me out of LoggedIn status every five or seven days or so. That is, I can fire up FF80.0 and use my bookmarked Eileen's Lounge three or more times a day, day after day, without having to sign in as ChrisGreaves, and then one time - Splat! - I am no longer logged in. EL has been having Login problems off and on still, so that my be a problem strictly local to EL. AskWoody also logs me out occasionally (not on the same day as Eileen's), but that too might be the result of a knob/switch in their software.

At the risk of seeming Prolix :grin: I should re-state that (a) Firefox is the only browser I have installed (although IE/Edge is lurking off-stage somewhere I am sure), and (b) I have stopped using CCleaner for now, and (c) RevoUinstalled GlarySoft utilities.

Something/someone, somewhere, sometime seems to be obliterating or rendering inaccessible, login data that, I believe, ought to carry over from session to session.

Thanks for the response, truly,
Chris
Last edited by ChrisGreaves on 28 Aug 2020, 12:54, edited 1 time in total.
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by ChrisGreaves »

ChrisGreaves wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 20:31
I am looking for some way to preserve vital cookies, in a file that can be rolled in on command.
Yesterday was "banking day" for six accounts. First thing this morning I checked the five financial institutions (one bank is a chequing account AND a credit card) and two forums. All bookmarked online sites had preserved my account numbers/names.
So far so good. Encouraged I have copied "cookies.sqlite" to my daily blotter folder "T:\Blotter\20200828\". I am, of course, tempted to add a DOS COPY command to my Autoexec.bat file.

I have Revo-uninstalled CCleaner, just in case I had any stray calls to it that might have been purging login details.

I plan to test all 6+2-1=7 online sites first thing each morning for a week, to see if the login data is being lost.

At some point I might re-install CCleaner for long enough to clear all cookies NOT in my Exclude list, login to each of the seven sites, add any relevant cookies to the Exclude list, purge cookies, and re-save my "cookies.sqlite" to that day's blotter folder. Then re-Revo-uninstall CCleaner.

Cheers
Chris
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HansV
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by HansV »

Even if you have CCleaner installed, it won't do anything unless you explicitly run it.
Best wishes,
Hans

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Where are cookies held? where is "INetCookies"

Post by ChrisGreaves »

HansV wrote:
28 Aug 2020, 11:26
Even if you have CCleaner installed, it won't do anything unless you explicitly run it.
Thanks Hans, and Quite So!
But I am prone to appending command-lines in various batch files, and I wanted to head off any such attempts (such as my CCleaner /AUTO) that may be lurking in the bushes!

:whisper: You may not know this, but my fever for automation sometimes shoots me in the foot (grin!)
Cheers
Chris
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