In this excerpt from
Answercast #100 I look at why some websites need to store a small bit of
information on your hard drive… and what you can do about it.

Sites downloading information

I Can Haz Permission?

Well, yes… Click “accept.”

So here’s the deal. A lot of the technology that we are using these days
actually does require that they store a little bit of information on your hard
drive. Usually it’s information such as:

• Have you viewed this video before?

• Where were you in this video the last time you used it?

• Do you have the right software to view this video?

• Can you download that software if you don’t have the right software?

• And so forth.

In other words, there’s a lot of very, valid information that these sites
need to store on your machine in order for their things to work properly – or
for your ongoing experience with them to operate as smoothly as possible.

By ongoing experience, I mean the next video or the next time you come back
to that site, and so forth.

Permission to download

Now a lot of sites don’t bother to ask your permission. Whatever site this
is, and whatever specific software it is that’s asking your permission, is
actually being fairly polite.

Like I said, a lot of sites just store things without asking. You never
notice it; it’s not a problem but this site is being polite; it’s asking.

Security settings

Now it’s also possible that your security software is asking on its behalf.
In other words the security software is noticing that this site needs to store
a little bit of information on your hard drive, and it’s asking you. If this is
a site you regularly visit, and a site that has (in your case apparently)
videos that you want to see, there’s nothing at all wrong with simply saying
“yes”. The amount they’re trying to store is typically tiny.

And it really only has to do with you and your experience with that site.
It’s not like they’re trying to store gigabytes of data on your hard drive for
some reason. No. It’s just a little bit of information that’s used to make your
experience with the video better.

Your choices

So my recommendation: there are two ways to deal with this problem:

1. Don’t visit sites that do that – if you really object to even this little
   bit of information being stored;

2. Or click “Accept.”

Like I said at the beginning… let the software do what it’s trying to do
and in general you’ll have a much better experience.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)