Internet conundrum

[Pego]

This is the situation. 2 computers a few feet apart (a laptop with W7, a desktop with Vista), about equidistant from a cable wireless modem. Each one has the same basketball game on ESPN3. During commercial breaks, one has a sequence Travelers>Windows 8>Lowe's, the other one Chase>Travelers>Lowe's. How is that possible? The pattern persisted trough-out.

[Daisy]

Cookies are your friend, or not, as the case may be.

See this article from the NYTimes magazine this weekend, "Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are?"

[lonewolf]

Dunno bout that. I have my own wonder.. PIP with both on same channel one lags the other by a second or so.

[Conor Dary]

I would go with Daisy's explanation.

[18.99s]

It's not just cookies; even if you have cookies turned off, your web browser will report your operating system name and browser version to sites you visit. If you were already using Windows 8, you probably wouldn't have seen that Windows 8 ad.

[Pego]

It's not just cookies; even if you have cookies turned off, your web browser will report your operating system name and browser version to sites you visit. If you were already using Windows 8, you probably wouldn't have seen that Windows 8 ad.

Now that you mentioned a browser, that was one difference between the computers. One used Chrome, the other one Firefox.