Cookies – Ugly Monsters or Helpful
Darlings?
What exactly are cookies, and what do
they do?
A cookie is a small bit of information a Web site places on your
computer. Cookies help identify you to the Web site and identify you the
next time you visit that Web site. They can store your user name and
password for a site, track purchases, record how many times you have
seen a particular banner advertisement, record the operating system
software you use, record the Web browser you use, the Internet address
you are using, the last Web site you visited, and other information.
Are cookies similar to
viruses?
No. Cookies are a line of text stored in a file generated by the Web
servers that your browser visits. Because cookies are text files, they
do not act like viruses on your computer and are not malicious, as
viruses can be.
Are cookies useful?
Generally, yes. Cookies frequently are used for verification
purposes. For example, Amazon.com uses cookies to collect a visitor's
email address, password, purchase history, and full Uniform Resource
Locators (URL) clickstream to, through, and from its Web site, including
date and time. The gathering of some of this information (such as
password and user identification) allows visitors to return to a site
multiple times without having to reenter their personal data.
Can cookies be deleted?
Yes. By default, most Internet browsers accept all cookies. You can
change your browser's security settings to accept all, reject all, or be
prompted whenever a cookie is encountered. Both Internet Explorer and
Netscape allow you to delete cookies, although these cookies are likely
to be recreated when you visit the Web site the next time. Several
software programs allow you to get more information on the cookies on
your computer. The software programs allow you to see the issuing site,
expiration date, and other details of cookies stored on your computer.
The programs also let you set filters for accepting or rejecting cookies
from Internet sites.
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