Browser Configuration

Proper viewing of this website requires that your browser have cookies enabled and that the cache be configured so that the browser checks for new versions of each page on each visit.

There are too many browsers for us to explain in detail how to configure each one. We'll give examples based on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (MSIE) and Netscape 7. If you're using an earlier version of either major browser, you need to upgrade. Browser companies are continually releasing updates to fix the problems that are continually being identified. If you don't keep your browser up to date, you may have worse problems than not being able to view this website.

Much of what's said here also applies directly to other browsers that are based on MSIE or Mozilla Gecko. It also applies in some measure to earlier versions of these two browsers.

Here's the "user agent string" that your browser is sending to this server:

CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)

Hmm... I can't tell what type of browser you're using. Hopefully this page will be useful to you anyway.

Contents

• Cookies
• Internet Explorer 6
• Netscape 7
• Cache
• Internet Explorer 6
• Netscape 7
• Still Have Problems?

Our webserver uses a cookie as a persistence mechanism: From one page to the next, the server needs to know that it's your browser returning, so it can keep your activity on the site associated with you and not somebody else. To handle this need, we use only session cookies that vanish from your computer when you exit your browser program, so there is no significant security or privacy risk from enabling cookies issued by this site.

Most browsers have cookies enabled by default, but there are quite a few ways you might have disabled cookies, even without knowing it. If your login on this site is not working correctly, check to make sure cookies are enabled, at least for this site.

You don't appear to be using Internet Explorer or any of its relatives.

Internet Explorer is a member of a family of browsers with similar cookie handling. The browser built into America Online (up to at least version 7) is MSIE, and many other browsers are either MSIE with different branding or entirely new user interfaces built upon the basic MSIE engine.

The various versions of MSIE and its relatives offer a lot of flexibility in ways to deal with cookies. All of these capabilities are accessed through the Internet Options panel. Depending on which browser you're using, you may be able to find Internet Options under the Tools menu. But in any case, the same Internet Options panel is available in the Windows Control Panel.

If you open the Internet Options panel and click on the Privacy tab, you'll get a display like this:

If you set the privacy level to Medium, you should have a reasonable balance between privacy safeguards and ability to operate on websites like this one. But there are two other adjustments you can make.

One way to enable cookies for this website without affecting your browser's handling of cookies on other sites is to click on the Edit button and enter this website's address with an Always Allow setting.

Your other option is to fine-tune your browser's cookie policies. If you click on the Advanced button, you'll get a display like this one:

If you check the box labelled Override automatic cookie handling, you can adjust various other cookie handling options. The key is to enable the option labelled Always allow session cookies. You can also specify separate settings for first-party and third-party cookies.

You don't appear to be using Netscape or any of its relatives.

Netscape 7 is a member of a family of browsers based on the Mozilla Gecko engine. Most of the following is applicable to the other browsers in the family: K-Meleon, Mozilla, etc.

Netscape 7 offers somewhat less cookie configuration flexibility than MSIE 6. Open the Edit menu, click on Preferences and double-click on the Privacy and Security category label, then click on Cookies. You'll get a dialog box like this one:

Unless you want to enable all cookies, what you want to do here is to click the option labelled Enable cookies for the originating web site only. You can also configure the browser to warn you before accepting any cookies, and you can force all cookies to vanish from your computer when you exit the browser program -- though this option will not affect our website, because we use only nonpersistent, session cookies that will vanish automatically anyway.

Advanced Netscape browsers have begun to offer the option of managing cookies on the basis of privacy policies published by the website. This website does not yet make use of this facility, because Internet Explorer does not yet offer a similar capability. If this becomes a web standard, we'll use it.

The objective here is to make sure that your browser doesn't use stale information that has been temporarily stored or "cached" on your PC. You need to make sure that the browser checks the cached data against the age of the data on the webserver every time you view a page.

If you use MSIE 6 or one of its relatives, open your Internet Options panel and click on the General tab, to get a display like this one:

In this panel, click on the Settings button, and you'll get another popup box like this one:

In this panel, find the configuration option Check for newer versions of stored pages:, and select the value Every visit to the page.

If you use Netscape 7 or a related browser, you should open the Edit menu and click Preferences. Double-click the Advanced category label. Beneath Advanced, click on Cache to get a display like this:

In this panel, find the configuration option Compare the page in the cache to the page on the network: and select the value Every time I view the page.

If you've done all this and the website still doesn't act the way it should, please report the problem to the webmaster.

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