Information About Cookies

Cookies are undoubtedly the inherent part of Internet.They help both users and websites save valuable time and provide a better way of communication.Let's digg about cookies in detail.

What are Cookies ?
Cookie is a small piece of information sent by a Web server[like www.gmail.com] to a Web browser[like internet Explorer]. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies can be best explained by a typical daily used E-mail.Open your favourite email site such as Yahoo or Gmail .Now type in your id and password and check the box "Remember my ID in this computer" and click sign in.Once you are signed in close the browser without logging out.Now if you open the earlier site again ,you will not be prompted for your id and password ,instead you will directed to your inbox.This is because when you checked the box "Remember my ID in this computer" the website had put some piece of information as a simple text file in your harddisk ,which is nothing but a cookie.

This cookie can only be read by the server which actually placed it.Once you log out, the cookie is automatically deleted.These type of cookies are called "Temporary cookies".There are also "Permanent Cookies" which won't get deleted even after logging out or closing the browser.

What are they used for ?

• Personalized Start Pages
  
• Online Ordering Systems
  
• Website tracking
  
• Targeted marketing

What about Security ?
An HTTP Cookie cannot be used to get data from your hard drive, get your email address or steal sensitive information about your person. Early implementations of Java and JavaScript could allow people to do this but for the most part these security leaks have been plugged.

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