Internet Cookies... Explained
By
Staten Island, NY Posted: 1/11/2017 1:00:00 AM
What's an Internet Cookie?
As a tech guy, people often ask me about deleting their "Cookies" because they really don't know what they are, and they often think they're harmful.
The simple answer is cookies are harmless text files placed on your computer by a website. They don't contain any programs, so they can't harm you computer. Most of the time, they only store a bunch of random looking numbers that the web site uses to know you were there.
Here's how it works.
As soon as you visit a web site for the first time, the web site asks your browser software if it has a cookie from a previous visit. If not, it generates a unique number and stores it in a Cookie file that your browser saves on your computer. It also keeps track of the number it saved in a database in case you visit again.
From that point on, every time you visit a page on the site, the web site reads the cookie file, sees the unique number it stored there on your last visit, and it will know you are the same person from your previous session.
There's no personal information in the cookie itself. Most of the time it only has a the unique identification number it generated when you first visited, which potentially links to a database of all the transactions you've made on the site., so the only way it can contain personal information is for you to give it to the site itself.
One way to visualize this is to think of two people walking into a store. As each walks in, you put a sticker on them with a number and ask them to wear the sticker every time they shop. Shopper #27 asks for a pair of red shoes. Shopper #57 asks for a yellow pair of sox. Neither give you their name, or any other personal information, but when they return, you can recognize their numbers and offer each of them the shoes and sox they're interested in. That's pretty much what the cookie does. Each time you return to a site, the site sees your unique number and it will automatically remember what you're interested in.
Joe Crescenzi, Founder
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