:Not in my case - I didn't clear cookies at all,
:just Active Logins and, as it happens, I also
:cleared my cache at the same time - but not cookies.

I have tested the procedure once more to make sure it is correct what I have written:
I am logged in and able to post replies. Then clear the active logins and cache only as you advised :

History> Clear Recent History >Time range to clear: Everything; Details> Active Logins & Cache only to be ticked, the rest of the boxes empty. Clear Now.

When reloading the page, a dialog box will pop up requesting username and password. So far so good. Then I close the tab, load RMN in another tab, and click on ‘Common Ground Independent Media’ link to enter the CGI forum. Then lo and behold it has recognized me again without logging in displaying the message:

"Welcome back, morfeus!"

I can not post, but it still recognizes me by my user name, so this is not a complete log out, and quite confusing, especially to those less computer savvy. OK this didn’t work, it still recognizes me, so next I have cleared the Active Logins AND the Cookies as well (clearing the cache makes no difference in this regard):

History> Clear Recent History >Time range to clear: Everything; Details> Cookies & Active Logins to be ticked, the rest of the boxes empty. Clear Now.

Then reload the page and it will not recognize my user name anymore.

The "Log Out" link you added is a useful feature, better than nothing. But it still does not do a decent logging out because we are still recognized by our usernames when reading the CGI forum. The "Log Out" link actually performs the clearing of the Active Logins (and perhaps cache, which makes no difference), but it will not clear the Cookies. It also confuses the user if he is not familiar with the procedure we are presently talking about.

Here is why: when I click the "Log Out" link the “Authentication Required” box will pop up. This in itself is confusing why a username and password would be required for logging out. The user must know that he must click the cancel button, but this information is not provided on the popup box. If the user knows what to do and cancels it, then an “Authorization Required” Message appears on a page that looks like an error page because it takes me back to the member’s page link:
http://cgi.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/members/forum.cgi
which would work only with active logins, so it is actually an error. In order to avoid this error it supposed to take us to the CGI reader page:
http://cgi.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi
But as I mentioned earlier it still recognizes us by our username (because the Cookies are not cleared).

Even though I am willing to fiddle with these things because I have a good knowledge of computers, most of the people don’t want all these complications. They just want simple and clean login – log out options to work smoothly as they do on most other forums. They don’t care about how it works, how complicated it is in Java and on Apache server and whether it is possible or not. They know it is possible to use such solutions as other forums do, so it is up to you to choose a solution that makes such trivial basic functions possible and straightforward. I am sorry if this sounds harsh but this is the plain truth. And I don’t like to be limited to politically correct speech only.