|
|
| (World-Wide Web) | HTTP cookie - A system invented by Netscape to allow a
web server to send a web browser a packet of information
that will be sent back by the browser each time it accesses
the same server. Cookies can contain any arbitrary
information the server chooses to put in them and are used to
maintain state between HTTP transactions, which are
otherwise stateless. Typically this is used to authenticate
or identify a registered user of a website without
requiring them to sign in again every time they access it.
Other uses are, e.g. maintaining a "shopping basket" of goods
you have selected to purchase during a session at a site, site
personalisation (presenting different pages to different
users) or tracking which pages a user has visited on a site,
e.g. for marketing purposes.
The browser limits the size of each cookie and the number each
server can store. This prevents a malicious site consuming
lots of disk space. The only information that cookies can
return to the server is what that same server previously sent
out. The main privacy concern is that, by default, you do not
know when a site has sent or received a cookie so you are not
necessarily aware that it has identified you as a returning
user, though most reputable sites make this obvious by
displaying your user name on the page.
After using a shared login, e.g. in an Internet cafe, you
should remove all cookies to prevent the browser identifying
the next user as you if they happen to visit the same sites.
Cookie Central. | |
Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content. |
|