Why the Forum uses Cookies

Why the Forum uses Cookies and How to Enable them in your Browser

Cookies are used ONLY for your Username and Password, not to track your movements about the site.
Many people block cookies or use security software which blocks them for many of the wrong reasons. There are quite a few snoopy marketers out there along with webmasters who "partner" (sell-out) with them who DO want to track your movements on the web, but we aren't one of them. Notice the lack of commercial advertising on Railfan.net? We don't market anything here and we hate how commercial so many sites have become.
Even if you block cookies in your browser it is easy to allow them for our Forum and I assure you, it's 100% safe while in our boards.
- Henry

Internet Explorer 6

Go to the Tools menu at the top and select Internet options.
Click on the Privacy tab
Click on Edit under "Web Sites"
Under "Address of Web site:" put in Forums.Railfan.net
Click on the Allow button
Click on OK
Click OK again and you're done.

Internet Explorer 5

Go to the Tools menu at the top and select Internet options.
Click on the Security tab
Click on Trusted sites
Click the Sites button
Uncheck "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone"
In the "Add this Web site to the zone:" string gadget put in:
http://Forums.Railfan.net
Click Add
Click OK
Click OK again and you're done.

Netscape 6

You can access the Cookie Manager from the the Tasks pull-down menu
Choosing Privacy and Security and Cookie Manager.
Select "Allow cookies from this site" or "Unblock cookies from this site"
Note: We don't use Netscape 6 or 7 so we don't have specific instructions on how to use the Cookie Manager, but it should be intuitive enough for you to figure out. We just don't want that AOL software on our computers, honest!

Netscape 4.x

Go to the Edit menu at the top and select Preferences
Under Category click on the word "Advanced"
Under "Cookies" click on "Accept only Cookies that get sent back to the originating server"
OR click on "Warn me before accepting a cookie"
Click OK and you're done.

Norton Internet Security 2003

We don't have NIS 2003 and frankly we don't want it. It's a huge headache and causes all kinds of problems with all sorts of normal internet traffic.
That said, you SHOULD be able to get it to allow our login cookies by twiddling its settings. I have a manual for NIS 2003 and have used it to help users before (WHY am I forced to do FREE support for Symantec?), but I have not found a setting to override settings for individual web sites, maybe you can...
To change the Cookie Blocking setting
1 Start Norton Internet Security.
2 Double-click Privacy Control.
3 In the Privacy Control window, in the Privacy Control settings for drop-down list, select the account that you want to change.
4 Click Custom Level.
5 Select the Cookie Blocking setting that you want. You have three options:
6 Click OK.
High Blocks all cookies
Medium Alerts you each time that a cookie is encountered
None Allows cookies
This statement from Symantec says a lot: "Norton Internet Security can block certain elements of a Web site that prevent it from displaying correctly in your Web browser. In some cases, the site might not display at all."
More information on NIS 2003 problems is here.
The NIS manual in PDF format can be downloaded here.