Recently I ran a full scan manually. As a result, 70 tracking cookies were removed. I looked through the list of these 70 cookies: They were all valid tracking cookies, and were rightfully removed.
But: Directly after the scan I discovered that I also lost all other cookies, specifically those used to logon automatically to web sites. Now this topic has popped up many times in this forum, but I did not find a solution.
I use Windows 8 / IE10, with NIS 20.3.0.36. The system is fairly new, NIS was even preinstalled on the laptop.
Yep, me too; I'm using IE10 with Windows 7. It appears that NIS is misclassifying cookies with IE10. I can uninstall IE10, which reinstalls IE9, and everything is fine. Reinstall IE10, the cookie issue returns. So far Norton hasn't acknowledged the issue or resolved the problem. It also removes cookies that are used by some financial institutions to identify your computer as authorized. This problem has been brought up on the forum several times.
Nope, NIS doesn't seem to misclassify cookies. The cookies that I lost were not removed directly by NIS. NIS keeps a list of the cookies that it removed, and all 70 in the list were genuine tracking cookies.
Something in the way HOW the cookies are removed must be wrong, and possibly cause IE10 to clean all of the other cookies as a result.
Unfortunately I can't go back to IE9, because IE10 is part of Windows 8.
In the list of cookies that are removed at the very end of the list it also states "Tracking Cookie: Orphan cleanup" (Removed), but doesn't show what they were. I think in that 'orphan" group is where valid login and financial cookies are being grouped.
Edit to add: I should note that I don't have IE10 set to remove cookies; I let NIS remove cookies when it performs scans. Also, I use the free version of CCleaner to occasionally clean my system, including removing cookies, and it doesn't remove my login and financial institution cookies because I have them classified as cookies to keep.
You are right: I stopped IE10 and opened the folders where the cookies reside. I ran the tracker cookie scan, and all cookies were removed by NIS. IE10 has nothing to do with the removal itself.
This is a workaround to exclude a specific cookie. If you want to exclude cookies for more web pages, then you need to run scan after accessing all those required web pages and then exclude it. Let us know if this worked for you.
HarryP; I very much appreciate a Symantec Employee addressing this problem because it is really becoming a nuisance, not so much with communities and forums where logging in is easy with Identity Safe, but with banking institutions where you have to jump through hoops and reestablish your computer as a valid device to access accounts.
I don't know if Microsoft's IE10 processes these cookies differently, but I really hope Symantec will fix this problem soon.
However, in the meantime, I will test this workaround with my financial sites later today and post my results.
Thanks again for your response; until now I was disappointed that someone from Symantec hadn't acknowledge what I believe is a significant issue.
Might I just add that at the moment NIS has been completely removed from my W8/IE10 computer and that I have the same problem of cookies being wiped out (in spite of the fact that I have ticked the box not to remove the cookies corresponding to my favourite websites). I read at one point that it was a problem with IE10, and that Microsoft were trying to solve it.
HarryP; I followed the instructions and at first I thought it was working because after logging into one of my financial institutions, going through the security update process, and then excluding the resulting tracking cookie I was able to run a quick scan and no tracking cookies were detected and I could login to that financial institution again without issue.
However, after logging into several other sites and running a quick scan after each and not seeing any tracking cookies detected; I got suspicious. It appears that when you click "Exclude" it doesn't add those cookies to an Exclusion List, it simply sets the Tracking Cookie Scan to "Ignore" instead of "Ask Me".
I'm using NIS 2013 with the latest updates; perhaps it is different from Norton 360 where those instructions came from.
So, in conclusion, it doesn't appear that clicking "Exclude" added specific cookies to an "Exclusion" list because when I set Tracking Cookie Scan to "Remove" it removed the Tracking Cookies I'd previously excluded.
Sure hope Norton or Microsoft fixes this issue soon! Thanks again for responding to this issue; I wish it had worked as a workaround!
This is a irritating problem and one that kept happening and I wasn't sure why. But I knew it was after 2013 Norton antivirus did a idle scan and removed tracking cookies. Just all of a sudden I was having to sign back into almost everything and forums are the ones that bother me the most.
So I tried searching and ended up here. I have Norton on 3 computers and its doing the same thing, all have windows 7 and IE10.
It does appear once and awhile it won't removed some of the cookies that should have been kept.
It appears its not clear if its a IE10 issue or Norton but it only happens after a scan. So in my case the idle scan is removing all the cookies, so that makes it sound like at least a partial Norton problem.
Am I suppose to report this to support ? For now I got it set to ask me so it won't remove the cookies.
Just curious if anyone at working with Norton knows if the problem will be fixed or not. I didn't contact support because I know they have to be aware of it. Plus they would probably tell me to try all kind of stuff what wouldn't actually correct it.
Every search I've done on this ends up with the person having Norton on the computer, so I don't see how its actually a IE10 problem.
Glad I found this thread, I too lately have been getting this problem. After I do a manual quick scan I seem to get this issue but, my pc auto updated to IE 10 the other week and it appears to have started after this. Before this update I never had this issue with having to manually log into sites that would normally 'remember' me.
From what I have read, do you think it might be a good idea for me to uninstall IE10 and go back to previous version or stick with it and wait for an update from Microsoft?
Microsoft are working on it apparently ... but rather slowly, it seems. (I hesitate to say this, but it seems a bit better than it was ... not perfect yet however.)
Well, it only happens to me after Norton scans, never happens now that I have Norton set to ask me. That's on three computers.
So while it could be just a Microsoft problem, it still seems to mostly happen when Norton is used. I have Chrome of course but I hate the way it handles bookmarks. I guess its OK if one don't have many.
