What are those huge cylinders around USB cables for? I noticed that some USB cables have larger while others have smaller cylinders. Some only have one cylinder, and some don't even have those cylinders on their cables at all.
What are those for? Would it affect how my computer will work with Arduino?
They are ferrite chokes aka ferrite beads, meant to reduce interference pickup.
Because both the signal wire (the TX or RX line) and the return line (the cable ground) both pass through the center of the bead, they are not blocked. But a "common mode" signal will tend to be blocked by the bead.
Look up "common mode choke" for more information.
Typically, those cables are shipped with a particular device for regulatory compliance reasons. Without the ferrite bead, the device (with the cableattached ) emits excessive RF interference (or may be susceptible to interference from outside sources) and it would be illegal to sell the device.
In the "real world", they've always been interchangable (both ways) for me. You'll sometimes see these on power cables, VGA monitor cables, etc. With monitor cables, there is the possibility that it gives you a "better picture", but there are other things that affect cable impedance and shielding, etc.