Heard of web cookies? If you are even a moderate Internet users, you may have come across the word, Cookies, at one time or the other. For those of you who have not really understood what the word stands for, here goes.
To put it rather simply, a web Cookie is a kind of a message passed on to a web server by an Internet Browser. This message is initially stored by the Browser. Then, every time an occasion arises, this message is sent back to the server.
The message could be of any kind. It could, for example, help identify the user & carry his/her details. This could be of help to the people running the server & the pages it allows to download. So if the Cookie has identified that the user is constantly surfing for News, it will customize the Web Pages in such a manner that the next time the same user searches for something, the browser starts running News web pages, since that is what presumably the user likes.
There are 2 ways of placing such messages or Cookies - either with the knowledge of the user or surreptitiously, without his/her knowledge. Internet etiquette says that any website must declare openly that they are about to place a Cookie on your Internet Browser to collect information related to you or your usage of the Net. When you enter such a site, you will be asked to fill out a form providing such information as your name, age & interests, among other things. This information is then packaged into a cookie & sent to your Browser to be stored. The next time you go to the same Web site, your Browser will send the cookie to the Web server.
Web cookies were earlier called "magic cookies" when they were first introduced. To be a little technical, a Cookie is a small text file stored by a web site on your computer to keep track of information about your browsing on that site.
Some of the other reasons why web sites use Cookies are:
Some sites use Cookies to record your web surfing patterns. For example, a search site may present you with Content that revolves around your interests.
Cookies are also used to distribute online information.
It is also used for online security.
There are many websites that "plant" Cookies on you without your knowledge & collect relevant information. This is completely unethical & illegal in many places. Have you ever wondered how, every time you download a particular website, you get ads that are to your liking? That happens because cookies have already transmitted that information of your advertising likes & dislikes to the concerned web servers.
You can do a sweep of your computer and "clean up" all such cookies using certain software, available paid & free, online. But that lesson, we keep for another day.
