I had a firewall (Zone Alarm) in operation for one month. During that month, nothing on my computer worked properly. It was a major problem to use it, and so many functions were crippled. I guess hackers couldn't get in. But then I barely could either. Now I take my chances without a firewall.

Everytime the subject of computer cookies comes up, I decide to take another run at controlling them, because it just makes me nuts to think that cookies allow strangers to come into my "home," uninvited, and spy on me.

On ZoneAlarm, I have privacy options set up for cookies that remove "private header information." That option prevents third parties from accessing my IP address, workstation name, login name, or other personal information, and a ZoneAlarm message pops up to tell me whenever it has prevented a "private header information" cookie from being deposited on my computer.

On Fodors, that message pops up continually unless I turn off the message option in ZoneAlarm. Can some smart techie on this site tell me why Fodors needs to communicate my private information to "third parties?"

In the end, despite my fear and loathing of cookies, especially those a site like Fodors allows 3rd parties to stash on my computer to track what I'm doing, I end up lifting the restrictions because some of my favorite sites won't work unless cookies are fully enabled.

So we can say, "Make sure cookies are fully enabled," but there are consequences to doing that - namely, a sacrifice of one's privacy.