"...I just remembered (and braved the hurdle of having to provide username and password yet a few times more... Site-owner, please can you reduce the number of times we have to type our username and password. Please!!! I clicked my may to this discussion, posted one answer, had to go back, and posted another one. There must be a way of doing that without the need of providing the same username and password for no less then 7 times ..."
Qnu,
setting cookies is a standard procedure nowadays in forums all over the net to remember username and password. This prevents you from typing several time your username and password while entering the forum.
This cookie-system is as secure as all other cookie-enabled systems on the net. If you are afraid of misuses og data on your computer, I must disappoint you. As soon as you go into the internet, your data are not secure anymore. Even with afirewall, you will not have any guarantee of security. It only makes it more difficult for somebody to break in your system, but not too difficult
So the use of the internt is always a trade off between convenience and security. Everybody has to decide this for him/herself.
Technically, if you do not leave any kind of cookies or other kind of information open to be readable, there is no way for a forum system to recognize you, because it does not "remember" you. It thinks you are the first time here in your life, because it sees you the first time in his "memory life".
Yahoo etc. mailing lists are not a solution for this. They only open another big security risk. With these mailing lists, you are spreading viruses and e-mail addresses/spam around the globe. I am sure that is neither something that you would like to have
This can not happen here, because the e-mail address is not visible on our forum or in the e-mails. Everything is encoded and a virus or spam agent can not use it.
Hope that helps