How does cookie cleaning work?

[rickhev1]

Suppose I have made a list of Cookies to Keep using Options Cookies.

Q1. Suppose I have made a list of Cookies to Keep using Options Cookies.  Next I run Analyze under Custom Clean.  Then I right click Firefox Cookies in the list and select Clean.  Will the cookies in my Keep list be deleted?

Q2. Suppose a.b.com is in my Options Cookies list and I put *.b.com in my Cookies to Keep list.  Then I right click on a.b.com in the left-side list and choose Delete.  Will it be deleted?

[nukecad]

If it is in the 'Cookies to keep' list  then Custom Clean will leave them alone.
Smart Cleaning uses the Custom Clean rules so will also leave them alone.

To be more specific to your question they would not be included in the Analyze so wouldn't be cleared that way either.

The same goes for your wildcard example, all cookies that match the wildcard syntax will be ignored and Custom Clean will leave them alone.

However; running Health Check will still clear them (apart from the ones that are there by default). Health Check always uses it's own rules regardless of your Custom Clean settings.
(Sometimes that can be handy for a one-off clearing of the cookies that you normally keep).

Of course if you have your browser set to clear cookies on exiting/closing then it will still do that.
CCleaner can't change what you have told your browser(s) settings to do.

[rickhev1]

Thanks for the response.  I did some checking on my own and believe you are correct.  One addendum:  When you create the wildcard *.b.com, it removes a.b.com from the left-hand list, so you would not even be able to click on it.

[nukecad]

Yes that's expected behaviour.

Creating a wildcard entry in the 'Cookies to keep' list will remove any entries that match that wildcard from the 'Cookies on Computer' list to show that they won't get cleared.

Perhaps 'Cookies on computer' would be better named 'Cookies to clear'.
(Personally there's a few things I would have worded differently, but that's up to the developers. They do sometimes change wording when we suggest it).

[papabear00]

 

I think nukecad answered my question with his "perhaps" statement above, but I want to be sure.

I have a number of cookies listed under "Cookies to Keep" and ran a Clean.  Now, Health Check indicates that it uses Custom Clean Parameters.  The cookies that I want to keep are NOT listed under "Cookies on Computer".  This is confusing.  Are the cookies that I want to keep, kept?  If so, the "Cookies to Keep" are also "on Computer", which I believe is what nukecad was implying.

[rickhev1]

I can' t specifically fault anything said above, but my experience with cookie cleaning was that many cookies that I found later that I needed got cleared.  I've quit cleaning cookies and am hoping that browsers will eventually drop unused cookies.

[nukecad]

 

4 hours ago, papabear00 said:

..... Now, Health Check indicates that it uses Custom Clean Parameters.  The cookies that I want to keep are NOT listed under "Cookies on Computer".  This is confusing.  Are the cookies that I want to keep, kept?

If they are listed under 'Cookies to Keep' then they won't also be listed under 'Cookies on Computer'. (So yes what I was saying about the name).

I don't know about Health Check using Custom Clean Parameters in general, it was never intended to do that.
(If it did that then it would just be Custom Clean, and there would be no point having both).

But I have noticed that there is now a section in Health Check where you can set an 'Allowlist' for cookies, and that Allowlist mirrors with the 'Cookies to Keep' list in Options>Cookies.
So that if you set a cookie to allow/keep in one place then it also gets set in the other one.
In Health Check click 'Privacy' then 'Manage Allowed Websites'.
The 'Cookie Allowlist' there will contain the same list as 'Cookies to Keep' in Options>Cookies.