ripov -

I don't recognize your description, and wonder if you're using IE10/Win8. I don't have any ideas about what they've changed there, but the clues I've seen indicate lots of vagaries.

Through IE9/Win7, Favorites are the links to websites that you can save. They're under your username on the system drive, in a folder called "Favorites," and aren't temporary files so they wouldn't be cleared by any shutdown/cleanup operations. Logins are generally via a cookie in "Temporary Internet Files," (also under your username, but buried pretty far down in the tree) and putting mudcat.org in the "trusted site" list in IE is the simplest way to allow the 'cat to give you a "permanent" (or at least persistent) cookie that will stick at least until it expires.

If you're happy, I won't worry about it.

John