If you are having troubles adding more than one item to your shopping cart, you may want to change your cookie settings in both your browser and your anti-virus program to accept third party cookies.

What are cookies?

Cookies are messages that web servers pass to your web browser when you visit Internet sites. Your browser stores each message in a small file, called cookie.txt. When you request another page from the server, your browser sends the cookie back to the server. These files typically contain information about your visit to the web page, as well as any information you've volunteered, such as your name and interests.

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and other browsers keep surprisingly accurate records of your online activities, and not just in their history windows. Clearing out the virtual breadcrumbs in your Internet cache and browser histories not only helps preserve your privacy, it also can improve your PC's performance by letting you regain some disk space. Emptying the cache may even help a balky Web site load correctly. The following tips will help you check and change your browser cookie settings:

Netscape 4.x users: Choose Edit -> Preferences and then click on the 'Advanced' item in the list and you will see the cookie settings.

Netscape 6.X and 7.x users:  Choose Edit -> Preferences and click on the small triangle with the Privacy label. Select 'Cookies' and you will see your cookie settings.

Internet Explorer: Choose Tools, Internet Options. Under the General tab, click Settings in the 'Temporary Internet files' area. In the Settings dialog box, choose View Files to open a folder window that displays your browser cookies and cached Web sites. To see just the cookies, click the Name column, and then scroll down to the files starting with 'Cookie:'. To delete a cookie, simply right-click it and choose Delete. When you're done, close the folder window. To remove all your cookies, click Tools, Internet Options, select the General tab, and choose the Delete Cookies button. To block only third-party cookies, choose the Privacy tab and move the slider to the level that suits you. The Medium High setting lets me browse the Web normally without endless IE interruptions that ask if I want to accept a particular site's cookie. Click Sites to add the addresses of the sites whose cookies you want to block (or allow) always. When you finish, click OK twice. Note that the cookies set by sites on your 'Always allow cookies from' list will also get the boot when you delete all in IE, Firefox, and Opera.

Firefox: The Mozilla Foundation's browser comes with a handy self-destruct button labeled Clear Private Data that erases all your personal info at once.  But the program also gives you finer-grained control over cookie behavior: Choose Tools, Options, select Privacy in the topmost panel, and click Cookies. To block third-party cookies used by ad networks, check the box next to for the originating site only. To specify sites whose cookies you want to allow or block, click Exceptions, enter their URLs in the 'Address of web site' field, and click either Block or Allow. When finished, click Close.

Firefox's convenient cookie view lets you browse, search, and delete individual cookies: Click the View Cookies button under the Privacy tab in the Options dialog box. To search for cookies containing specific text, type the term into the Search field, or browse to and expand individual site addresses to reveal their related cookies.  Select the cookies you want to delete and then click Remove Cookie, or click Remove All Cookies to annihilate the entire batch. Click Close when your cookie cleanup is complete.

Opera: This browser makes it easy to remove your Web surfing traces. Like Firefox and IE, however, Opera also allows you to control cookies one at a time: Choose Tools, Preferences, select Advanced, and click Cookies in the left pane. To block third-party cookies, choose Refuse all cookies in the drop-down menu under 'Third party cookies'. Check Delete new cookies when exiting Opera to prevent the browser from saving new cookies that sites create during that session. This transforms all new cookies into session cookies, so it prevents ad networks from tracking your movements online.

To delete cookies individually, click Manage cookies under the Advanced tab in the Preferences dialog box, and either use the search field at the top of the window to find a specific cookie or browse the folders by Web site. As in Firefox, you must click each site's folder icon to display its cookies, which you can edit or delete by clicking the appropriate button.

You can block all cookies for a specific site, too (the default is to accept them): Select the site's folder (rather than the cookies under it), click Edit, and uncheck Use defaults for normal cookies, Accept cookies for server/domain, and/or Accept third party cookies for server/domain. When you're done, click OK, Close, OK.
 

Mozilla or Netscape menu: select Preferences,  in the left pane, under "Privacy & Security", select Cookies.  On the right side of the Preferences window, choose the action you wish from the list below:

  • Select the appropriate radio button to disable cookies, enable all cookies, or to enable cookies only from the originating web site. This means that your browser will not accept cookies from third-party or advertising companies. In Netscape 7.x, you can also choose to enable cookies based on privacy policies. For more information about this option, click View.
  • In Netscape 7.x, for added security, you may opt to disable cookies in mail and newsgroups, as well as having Netscape ask you before it stores a cookie on your computer. You can also limit the length of time the cookie can be stored on your computer.
  • To remove all cookies stored on your computer, click Manage Stored Cookies (in Netscape 6.x, click View Stored Cookies). In the Cookie Manager window that opens, you can remove cookies, as well as view information about each cookie.
  • Click OK until you return to the Netscape window.

Logging on with 3rd party firewall/antispyware/antivirus programs.

Some third party programs (zone alarm, etc...) will block the ability to store session cookies which will not allow a successful login to our site.

In order to login with a third party program, please configure it to work with our website and accept session cookies.

3rd party software for firewall, antivirus and antispyware can affect how your browsers handle cookies. Please make sure cookies are enabled or that "www.hofcraft.com" is added to your safe or trusted websites.

Zone Alarm

  1. In Zone Alarm, select Privacy.
  2. Under Cookie Control, click Custom
  3. In Custom Privacy Settings:
    1. Uncheck the box that says "Block session cookies"
    2. Uncheck the box that says "Block persistent cookies"
    3. Uncheck the box that says "Remove private header information".
    4. Uncheck the box that says "Expire Cookies"
  4. Click OK.
Norton Personal Firewall
  1. Double click on the Norton Personal Firewall icon in the tray.
  2. Click on the Open option in the pop-up menu.
  3. Click the Options icon in the Norton SystemWorks menu box.
  4. Click on the Personal Firewall option in the Options menu box.
  5. Click the Advanced Options button at the bottom of the Norton Personal Firewall Options menu box to retrieve the default settings menu box.
  6. Make sure you are in the "Web" tab. There may be several domains already listed in this area.
  7. Click on the Add Site button at the bottom of the Web defaults window.
  8. You will need to enter "www.amusicdirect.com" and "www.musicdirect.com" (without the quotes) as a new default. This should active the default rules section of that window.
  9. Make sure the Cookies and Referer (under Browsing Privacy) are set to permit as a default rule for the www.amusicdirect.com and www.musicdirect.com domains.
  10. Click OK, then click OK again.
McAfee Privacy Service
  1. Right-click the red "M" icon by your system clock.
  2. Click "Privacy Service."
  3. Click "Options."
  4. The McAfee Privacy Service window appears. Click the "Cookies" tab.
  5. Enter each website address from which you would like to allow cookies(www.amusicdirect.com and www.musicdirect.com).
  6. Click "Add."
  7. Once completed, close the window.

 

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