A+Cookie+Whatʹs+is+in+it?

A Cookie Whatʹs is in it?

Cookies have an air of mystery about them and leave many wondering whatthey are and who's benefit they are for.

Cookies are stored in a variety of places on your hard disk, depending on your browser and operating system.

Netscape for Windows:‐

See the file ʺcookies.txtʺ in the C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\ folder.

Netscape for Macintosh:‐

See file called ʺMagicCookieʺ found in the Netscape folder inside your System Folderʹs Preferences folder.

Internet Explorer for Mac: ‐

See file called ʺcookies.txtʺ in the Cache sub‐folder of the Explorer folder, which is inside your System Folderʹs Preferences folder.

Internet Explorer for Windows: ‐

There is a separate file in the C:\Windows\Cookies folder for each site that wants to store cookies data on your computer.

Once you locate your cookies file, take a look inside with a text editor such as Notepad (Do be careful not to modify the file) and youʹll probably be surprised at the number of entries squirreled away by sites youʹve never heard of.

The reason for that is because many popular sites have banner ads that are served up by other companies such as DoubleClick and LinkExchange.

A typical cookies file contains the name of the site that wrote the entry, an expiration date, and some additional data pertaining to your visit to a site.

Other crumbs of data that may be stored in cookies include your domain name (The part to the RIGHT of the ʺ@ʺ sign in your e‐mail address ‐‐ NOT your username), So panic not

The date and time of your visit, the type of computer, and operating system the browser you have, and a history of the pages you visit at a specific site.

Not all that intrusive

DoubleClick ( Which many people abhor ) say they only use cookies to keep users from seeing the same ad too many times.

This is now probably very true due to all the media scrutiny focused on them today.

So the question posed is are Cookie all that bad, when one takes into account that they certainly assist and make you Web browsing a lot easier

Cookies are designed to save you time and make surfing easier

Cookies cannot access personal data or files from your hard drive

Cookies can only be read by the website that created them

However I do not agree with those site which make it a pre‐requisite to allow cookies before you can view the site.

One should not be dictated to as to one preferences.  