What are cookies?

Do you remember when the correct answer to the title of this post (what are cookies?) would have been "small sweet cakes, typically round, flat, and crisp?"

Information/computer technology has added so many new words, terms, phrases and even new meaning to old words to our vocabulary that these days if you're not careful you could easily find yourself being completely lost in conversations where you know all the words being used, just not the modern interpretation.

So what is a cookie as far as technology is concerned?

Well, in simple terms a cookie can be thought of as an identification card for an Internet user which allows a website that you would have visited some time before to recognize you whenever you return to that site using the same computer and browser.

In more technical terms, a cookie is a small text-based file which is generated by a web server (the computer that operates a website) and stored on your computer's hard drive through your Internet browser which allows a website to recognize you as a returning visitor whenever you decide to revisit that particular website from the same computer, using the same browser.

Now, on the positive or good side cookies are necessary as they:

• help to speed up the load time of the webpages you revisit
• allows the website to remember what you would have placed in your shopping cart last time around for example
• remembers the personal information that you may have entered so you won't have to re-enter it among other things.  

On the negative side cookies can also be used as malware or spyware to:

• track you and your browsing habits
• flood your browser with ads and popup and your email with spam
• gather your personal information which can then be sold to other companies or third party individuals

It's important to note that for every website you visit, once it uses cookies, a cookie is placed on your computer's hard drive and while they are small files, they, over time will account for quite a bit of space.  For the malicious cookies, this is where common sense, anti-spyware and other internet security software comes into play. See here.

For more information on cookies you can check out this link.
For information on how to delete cookies see here.