Viruses that can erase data from users' hard drives, pop-ups, programs that are used for mail spam and online advertising ... This is a list of only the most common erroneous opinions about what cookies are. These are misconceptions by a fairly large number of respondents surveyed in the course of the study on what cookies actually are. And now it's time to dispel this very funny myth.
The word cookie, borrowed from an English cookie, translates to cookie. But we are not talking about cooking now. Correctly, just by analogy with portioned cookies, cookies are small pieces (pieces) of data that were created by a web page or web server when a user first visited it and stored on it as a file. They serve as a kind of identification card, which is sent by the web client (browser) to the server the next time you try to access the corresponding page on the site.
Everything seems to be clear. A user visited some web resource, information about this has been preserved. But why? What are cookies for? This is a good question. And here is the answer:
- for authentication (differences) of users;
- to remember your personal settings and preferences (for example, design, functionality);
- to track session status;
- to conduct statistics about user behavior on the site.
All these goals are quite logical and justified. So, if you access the site using cookies, the server understands that you are already identified and have access to certain data, services, operations. Or, for example, some resources suggest choosing a design for the user. That is, when you open the site using cookies, you will observe the settings saved for you (and not do the same again).
They are important for tracking user actions on the Internet. The collected data form statistics that are used by various advertising companies, but not to impose their products on you, but rather to demonstrate mainly those contextual ads and banners that most closely match your interests.
Cookies are not malicious files, as some people think. This is not even a program. They cannot delete information from the user's computer. Cookies - this is information about the pages you visit (which only this site can trace, and not anyone). After all, it was in connection with the assumption about the possible danger of revealing the secrets of the personal life of cookies and caused general concern. However, to leave them or not is only your decision. And we’ll talk about how to enable cookies if you haven’t done this yet, but want to.
They are in any modern web client. Cookies in Mozilla, Opera and other browsers are activated almost identically. To do this, you need to open the "Settings" menu, the "Privacy" tab and find the block with the history. Here you should select an entry that your history storage settings will be used. Set the icons next to the option "Accept cookies from sites" (including from third-party). That's all. Click OK and take advantage of the cookies that give us while surfing the world wide web.