AS ICT and A2 ICT Cookies Explained

Web sites generally like to be helpful - on re-visiting your favourite web site why should you have to keep on setting it up just the way you like it?

Would it not be so much easier for the site to know your details the next time you visit? Well, in fact this can be done. A web site can 'remember' such details by using a 'cookie'.

A 'cookie' is a small text file that is sent down into your browser's temporary storage area - (also called the browser "cache"). The text file may contain information about your particular settings, so the next time you visit, the site is set up just the way you like it.

A cookie may also be sent to the cache just to mark the fact that you have visited the site. Then the next time you visit (using the same browser on the same computer), the web server reads the cookie from the browser cache. This helps site owners a great deal, as it allows statistics to be built up of how many unique visits there are to the site, how many people visit again and so on.

Advertisers also use cookies to build up a picture of how many people view their adverts.

If you want to see the list of cookies in your browser try the following:-

Internet Explorer:-

On the menu,select: Tools -> Options

This window appears:

Notice the 'Temporary Internet files' section in the middle. Click on 'Settings' and the box below appears.

Now click on "View files'. Probably a long list of files will appear that are currently stored in the browser cache (note: all kinds of files are stored in the cache - not just cookies by any means!)

In the new window click on the 'Type' header so the list is sorted by the type of files they are.

Now scroll down to the 'text file' type and you will most likely see a long list of 'cookies' with a title starting with the term "cookie:"

If you actually want to see what the cookie contains:

Right click over the name of the file and select Open from the menu that appears. A dialogue box warning of 'system command' may pop up. Press 'yes' and the cookie should open up in your default text editor (after all it is just a text file).

Advantage of cookies: Allows you to re-visit sites and your setting will be remembered. Allows web sites to build up useful statistics about visitors.

Disadvantage of cookies: They can be used to track the sites being visited so some people may be concerned about privacy.

To address that concern, there are a large number of software utilities that allow you to manage cookies yourself - keeping the ones that are useful and deleting the ones that are not so useful to you.