# Privacy

These settings give you control over your privacy on the Internet.

Tip: Read Opera's tutorial for an excellent introduction to protecting your personal information and security on the Internet.

## Referrer logging

Some Web sites make a note of which page you came from, and behave accordingly. Turn referrer logging off if you do not want one site to know which other site you just came from.

Note: Some sites depend on referrer logging to work properly.

## Automatic redirection

Some Web pages automatically redirect you to another page or site. Disable automatic redirection if you would rather have manual control by clicking redirection links.

## Caching password-protected pages

If you log in to use a Web site, the log-in page will always be deleted from Opera's cache when you exit.

To make sure that Web pages you have visited within a password-protected site are also deleted, check the option to use cookies to trace password-protected pages.

Note: Checking this option will also prevent password-protected pages from appearing in your global history, and links to these pages will not be marked as visited.

## General cookie handling

There are four overall ways of handling cookies:

Option | Explanation
--- | ---
Automatically accept all cookies | Accept cookies regardless of who sets them
Accept only cookies from selected servers | Create a list of servers to accept cookies from
Display received cookies | View each cookie before accepting or refusing

The choices below fine-tune cookie handling. They are applied in addition to, and therefore depend on, the selections you made above:

Option | Explanation
--- | ---
Only accept cookies for the server | Accept cookies set by current server to itself, e.g. server.example.org, but refuse cookies intended for other servers within the same domain, e.g. otherservers.example.org, in addition to refusing third-party cookies (see below)
Do not accept third-party cookies | Accept cookies from all servers within current domain, e.g. example.org, but refuse cookies from another domain, e.g. example.com
Display third-party cookies | View cookies from other domains before accepting or refusing
Accept from any servers | Accept cookies set by any server in any domain

## Cookie filter

You can handle cookies based on which site sets them, for example accepting cookies from trustable.example.org, but refusing cookies from questionable.example.com.

1. Click
2. Enter address to server
3. Click drop-down button and select rule you wish to apply
4. Click

Option | Explanation
--- | ---
Server or domain | Address of current server or domain
Use as domain | Select whether this filter applies for a server or domain address
Accept cookies from server/domain
Accept third-party cookies from server/domain
Allow illegal paths | Control illegal usage of top level domains

Note: The "Refuse" rules have exactly the opposite effect of the "Accept/Allow" rules, and are therefore not listed here.

## Additional cookie options

Option | Explanation
--- | ---
Throw away new cookies on exit | All new or updated cookies will be deleted when you exit Opera
Display warning for illegal domains | Opera warns you if server attempts to set cookie where domain does not correctly match server
Display warning for illegal path | Opera warns you if server attempts to set cookie where there is a path mismatch

Learn more about cookies

Copyright © 1995 - 2003 Opera Software ASA. All rights reserved.