These little files hide in your computer so that your browser and websites can track your browsing sessions and save certain useful information, such as account names and passwords, for later retrieval.

Although cookies may seem harmless overall, they can threaten your privacy if an attacker tries to use them maliciously.

Because of that threat, most modern browsers make cookie storage easy to understand and control.

They also make it simple to remove individual website cookies, or even to delete cookies from your computer entirely.

Heres how you can perform the latter task in some of the most popular browsers.

Open Google Chrome, click the menu in the upper-right corner of the Chrome window, and select More tools Clear browsing data.

If its just cookie data, deselect the other two options (see screen on right).

IDG 4. To manage cookie data going forward, go to Chromes Settings Advanced Site Settings Cookie s, where you can make more nuanced decisions about how cookie data is saved (or not), including making Block and Allow lists for particular sites.

Make sure youre running the latest version of the Firefox browser, and then select the Firefox menu.

From there, select Options and then Privacy Security.

IDG 2. Scroll to the section on Cookies and Site Data, where you can select the Clear Data option to remove all cookies.

You can also choose the option to Manage Data, which shows you a complete list of your stored cookies which you can selectively delete or Remove All; the Exceptions option lets you set up lists to block or allow.

You will be given the option to Block all cookies.

Click Manage Website Data to see a list of all sites that have stored cookies, and manually choose which sites you want to delete cookies for, or Remove All.

Mac Cookie Cleaner