Vista SP2

Cookies don't carry infections, all they do is tag your computer to identify you as a user and this identity can follow you even when you access other sites. The cookies themselves are usually domain responsive (they have to be called by a particular domain) however when you go to a website with advertisements, it's possible for the advertisement to be in a IFRAME which can load a cookie from another site.

In fact the exploitation of Virus attacks through advertisements has been slowly increasing, after all it doesn't take much to run an advertising account to look legit for a short period of time before turning it rogue, to attack the sites it's shown on and the users that frequent those sites. Obviously though advertisers are coming around to checking advertisement updates and not allowing IFRAMES to be created by adverts etc.

You'll find some programs are just nagware, they might or might not do the job, but they'll nag all the same if you don't purchase them. To be honest you can do the same job they do, just clear your cookies from your browser cache manually and you won't have any problems. In fact if you are totally security conscious you can configure the browser to not remember passwords, to delete the history and cookies when the browser closes. (That would save you having to empty it manually, but you would have to login afresh everytime you closed your browser)

 

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