accept third party cookies

[mbday630]

What does that mean? Remember that I couldn't play cook apps games on facebook but I could play the kings app game - candy crush? well, I changed my settings to accept third party cookies and then I could play all games using firefox. but, when I did my spyware scan I had hundreds of spyware so I changed it back to not accepting third party cookies and now I am back to not being able to play the cook apps games on facebook. What is the difference? and wondering why the king app candy crush game still plays.

[middletoe]

"First party" cookies are from the website you visit.
Cookies contain bits of information about your web browser, your settings, what websites you've visited, etc.

"Third party" cookies come from websites you don't knowingly visit, but which have embedded code and trackers in the website you do visit. Websites like Facebook allow this because they are paid by advertisers.

Those Facebook games aren't "free" -- Facebook is allowing you to play them in exchange for your allowing a lot of 3rd party tracking cookies to be stored in your web browser, so you can be profiled and targeted by advertisers.

If you want to keep playing the Facebook games, you may be able to configure your browser to delete all cookies every time you close it. However deleting all cookies may cause saved games from those "free" games you play to also be deleted. Most web browsers allow "exceptions" to mass deletion of cookies, so you can delete all but the ones you find useful. You still need to figure out the ones you need. The Facebook games aren't necessarily hosted on facebook.com.

Unless you delete or block third party cookies, you will accumulate hundreds of them, even thousands, in less than a day. It's totally out of control, and advertisers will do whatever they can get away with.

[mbday630]

Thanks middletoe. wow. that is what I am dealing with - from going to maybe 100 spyware a day to over 800 and I think it was from facebook games.

[mbday630]

also, why can I play candy crush but not my other games on facebook? You would think it would be all the same.

[middletoe]

It might depend on which company is hosting Candy Crush versus the other games.
Or maybe they made a mistake and forgot about restricting Candy Crush (don't tell them).

[draclvr]

That is a great explanation of the cookie issues, middletoe! It also depends on what spyware software you are running. For instance SuperAntiSpyware tells you all the cookies are spyware. If you run CCleaner, it just finds them as cookies and you then delete them. As middletoe says, the "free" games on FB are not really free.