Cookie any one?

What Is It?

A Cookie is a little nugget of data that is sent to your browser from a World Wide Web Server. This data is accepted by your browser, checked for length, expiration date, path and domain then saved. This piece of data can be no more than 4000 bytes (characters) long and is never "executed" as code. It can not contain programs or viruses. A cookie can contain whatever data you want. You could create a unique user ID, save it as a cookie and then the browser would never have to enter it again. Shopping carts can be created that will allow the browser to quit and 6 months later come back and still have the same products in their cart.

When a person clicks a link to a page the browser checks the URL of the link against it's cookie database, if it has a cookie that matches the domain and path of the link it will send the cookie to the server along with the request for the page.

It is important to note that when a server sets a cookie the browser will not give up it's cookie data to any other server.

Proponents of the cookies.txt file argue that "cookies" are merely used to collect marketing data on Web users. I am concerned that a 2-way communication is established between my computer and the Internet without my knowledge or consent. The possibilities for abuse are endless, and while the Internet is a fabulous source for information, I have never agreed to let the Internet browse through my computer or learn anything about me.

The easiest way to avoid having a cookie set on your computer is to turn it off in your browser preferences. The problem is many sites won't even let you visit if you don't accept a cookie. Another ways is the trick the site your are visiting by "write protecting" the cookies.txt file if you are using Netscape as your browser. Simply locate the cookies.txt file in your Netscape folder and right click and select properties. Put a check mark in the "Read-only" box and and remove the check from the "Archive" box then restart Netscape. This will prevent any cookie information to be added to this file. This will also require you to re-register everytime you visit a site that requires registration.