Cookies: what is this and how does it work? Learning how to correctly use cookies

Surely in the process of using the Internet you met the term cookies. What it is? In fact, cookies are a file or several small files that store text information. They are created when you visit sites that support this technology.

How do cookies work?

Everything is very simple. As soon as the browser receives a specific web page from the site, the connection between it and your PC is broken. If you decide to go to another page of the same resource or update the current one, a new connection will be established. On sites where there is no authorization of users, this does not cause any problems. But if it is necessary, without additional measures, the resource is not able to "remember" people visiting it and display information in accordance with the preferences of each of them. Avoid the situation, when moving between different pages of the site, people are not perceived by the service as a new, unauthorized visitor, help cookies. What is this text information, you already know. And cookies work very simply: when you go from one page to another, the server sends a request to the computer for data from cookies. With the help of them, he knows who is going to perform such an action, and then, on the basis of the information received, satisfies the request or refuses. Cookies are also used when creating online stores. It is thanks to them that there can be a basket that we are familiar with, in which data are stored about selected but not yet produced goods. And it is the cookies that allow the specified goods not to disappear from it, while you are browsing other parts of the catalog and making out an order.

How useful are cookies?

You already know about several aspects of using cookies. What it is, we also managed to find out. Now let's talk about what else can be useful for this technology and in what cases it can not do without.

Surely you know that now many services have so-called "partner programs". Almost all of them are long-term and last for months or even years. Throughout this time on the hard disk, information is stored, thanks to which the partner will receive his interest, if the user who transferred from his link orders a service or product from the seller.

Cookies are also used when working with visit counters, rating and voting systems. What does this give in this case? Cookies are necessary for the system to determine if the user has already clicked on the link or left his voice. That is, there is some insurance against artificial cheating. There are ways to circumvent this protection, but for ordinary users this result is more than enough.

What should I fear?

Working with cookies, it is important to remember that in some cases innocuous at first glance, text information can carry a danger.

Cookies are one of the most important potential causes of privacy violation in the network. Why is this happening? Advertising sites always monitor which advertisement is viewed by a particular user. Cookies store information about which ads a person has already seen, track which topics are interesting to him. And while we are talking about cookies for an individual site, there is no need to talk about the leakage of personal information. But if it is a question of large advertising networks, the codes of which are present on the vast majority of resources, everything becomes more complicated. So, thanks to the Google AdWords system , "Google" can collect almost all information about human activities on the network. And if on some site he enters his name and surname, it becomes possible to link all these actions to the real person.

There are other problems related to cookies. In general, they are faced with programmers who prescribe the document code. Cookies for different sites. Without first consulting with professional sources, you can allow cookies to store logins and passwords from the site. As a result, it becomes very easy to withdraw them and use them for their own purposes. However, almost all more or less serious sites store passwords and logins in the database on the server. Cookies are used here simply as a conditional identifier for the user. And it is given only for a short period of time. That is, even if a hacker succeeds in accessing cookies, he will not find any valuable information there.

How do I enable, disable, and clear cookies?

If you decide to disable cookies, please note that you will have to re-enable them each time you go to the site where it is required.

For Mozilla Firefox. We go in the "Tools". Next, find the "Settings", and in it - the tab "Privacy." Opposite to Firefox in the frame "History" you need to select "do not remember" from the list.

For Google Chrome. Open the "Options" by clicking on the button in the form of a wrench. After that go to "Advanced" -> "Content settings". In the window that appears, select the Cookie item, and then mark the item that prohibits the storage of data by the sites.

As you can see, it's very easy to disable or enable cookies in Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, the most popular browsers. In other browsers, this is done in the same way, using the tabs "Security", "Privacy", etc.

If you need to clear cookies, it's faster and easier to do this not using standard browser tools, but using a special utility - cCleaner. Before cleaning, you need to close all browsers, otherwise you will not be able to delete all the cookies.

In general, the best option is to install one of the programs that automate the work with cookies. Now there are a lot of such applications, they weigh quite a lot and relieve users of the need to constantly change the parameters manually.