Cookies

A fairly fanciful name for a really fairly common concept - that of "cookies."

Picture taking in a movie.  The first thing you do is to purchase your ticket.  After paying the cashier you are given an admission ticket You then go past the ticket taker who rips your ticket in half and returns to you your stub. Your stub allows you to go out your car and back but still return to the movie.  If you try to return the next night, your stub is no good.

This is the same concept as "cookies."  If you succesfully log in (If you don't, you keep looping until you do, or else go away), your computer is given a token by the server called a "cookie" that your browser stores on your computer.  When you then call for a protected page, the server first asks your browser for a vailid cookie. If the server gets a correct cookie, your browser is sent the protected page if not, you are looped back to the login.

The subject of cookies is complex. Cookies are also quietly used to track people as they negotiate web pages. Imagine that, as you went through life, you carried a sign with you that showed where you had been. Everywhere you go people are allowed to write on your sign. It's not too bad if you went to the bank, buth there would be a problem if you went to a XXX Adult Theatre. Cookies are everywhere and all advertisers use them to see where their customers have been.

Hence, you browser has the ability to restrict cookies, even turn them off completely but many websites simply cannot function without them.. Some cookies are benign, they tell the website who you are and what your past preferences were, others are clearly malicious.

This is only a brief description of cookies and volumes have been written about how to manage them, when to delete cookies and what cookies to delete.

 

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