> It's hard to surf w/o cookies, isn't it?
not especially. it's certainly not as 'transparent' or 'convenient' as giving sites carte blanche to read and write cookies, but, then, i expect that companies with meticulous pychographic data based on years of microinteraction records) will prove to be 'inconvenient.'
most (Worst Word Ever) browsers allow you to set policies for cook- ies: accept/reject this one, accept/reject all from this site, ask about each cookie, and so on. the last version of netscape which i bothered to check didn't have this feature, which was a big reason i switched to MSIE.
so, if you configure it to (a) ask you about cookies on a per-site basis, and (b) reject them all, you'll do OK. the reason for doing it this way is: they're quite convenient for some sites i actually trust (e.g., slashdot), and some sites simply won't work without a cookie (e.g., the NYT). this means you'll have to fob off a few at each site, but that just means consists of keeping a finger cocked over the escape key (i.e., 'reject' or 'decline').
> Exactly while file(s) should be deleted?
i only work on macs and unix, but by and large there'll be a 'user profile' directory somewhere obvious, named something like 'cookie' or 'magic cookie.' for example, for netscape under macos, the path is something like this:
HD/applications/Netscape/Netscape Users/some_user/MagicCookie
HD/System Folder/Preferences/Netscape/Netscape Users/some_user/MagicCookie
if you're using windows, just use whatever file-search app to find anything with the substring 'cookie' in it (e.g., 'MagicCookie').
there are gobs of little freeware/shareware apps for scrambling or exterminating them, for example, when you shut down your confuser.
cheers, t