Can someone please explain to me what cookies mean? Just pretend that you are talking to a 3 year old so I will hopefully be able to understand. Thanks very much.
2007-03-19 18:39:25 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Internet
They are text files on your computer in which the websites you visit store information about the pages you visit, settings you select on them etc.
Have you noticed that if you log to Yahoo Answers and open another tab in your browser and go to Yahoo Mail (type mail.yahoo.com in the address bar) it automatically opens your account, you don't need to enter the id and the password again?
It's because when you first logged to Yahoo Answers it saved a cookie on your computer in which it stored your user id so that other Yahoo sites will know to directly open your acconunt.
Some cookies expire after you close your browser, some only after you delete them with your browser's "delete cookies" command
hope it helped
2007-03-19 18:52:35 · answer #1 · answered by Deep Thought 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cookies are small bits of information sent back and forth from your computer and website to retain information during your web surfing. They can retain encrypted login information so each time you visit a member only page it checks if you are logged in and should be accessing the page by seeing that cookie on your computer. When you click a check box "remember me" during a login you are telling your computer to keep that cookie for several days so you do not have to log in again the next day or so. Cookies also keep information like what you have in your cart while shopping online, etc. There are many other uses such as tracking your website habits as well.
2007-03-20 01:51:42 · answer #2 · answered by Mr Ale 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ok..
I'm a 3 year-old:
What are cookies in a computer?
Cookies store parts of thing that you have done in a computer, so the next time you do it, some tasks will be automatically finished for you.
Example is when you type your username for a site. The next time you open the site, on the same computer with the same cookies, then you have the choice not to type your username anymore. You can scroll it from where you typed first.
2007-03-20 01:49:54 · answer #3 · answered by JD 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They hold information on the times and dates you have visited web sites. Other information can also be saved to your hard disk in these text files, including information about online purchases, validation information about you for members-only web sites, and more. I
f u have visited a page and signed onto that page, when u try to sign in again ur name will be displayed automatically....
that is with the help of cookies only
2007-03-20 01:43:53 · answer #4 · answered by Xavi DK 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some cookies are pests, others are necessary to speed up your experience in connecting with certain sights. I use Yahoo Anti Spy to delete some cookies. But, since I have real player, I do not delete those real media cookies, because they are needed for the player to run properly. It's not easy to distinguish good cookies from bad, just as some scan say your computer boot up files might contain "trojan" or hijacker malware. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some printer, camera, hard drive files or programs are falsly seen as problems in our computers, when in fact, like cookies sometimes, are necessary for our computers to run smoothly. To ad, cookies or "automatically sign me in" boxes, in my experience, should never be checked. You could not even be on your computer, and your computer's surfing habits will be stored in some data based, un-known to you. I NEVER check those boxes, as I've woken up, turned on the pc, and my anti-virus with detect I got an intruder file, even with the computer. Besides, I don't want to know your surfing habits, and I certainly do not want mine watched by some advertizing agencies, then I get all sorts of un-wanted emails. Cookies are not all harmless as I read above. While it might not be a virus it might affect how your web browswer acts on mouse clicks. I think there are good and bad aspects of cookies, from personal experience.
2007-03-20 01:47:29 · answer #5 · answered by palon1957 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cookies are temporary memory used for websites. They are saved in the form of a text file in the cookies folder.
Holds information on the times and dates you have visited web sites. Other information can also be saved to your hard disk in these text files, including information about online purchases, validation information about you for members-only web sites, and more.
2007-03-20 01:42:34 · answer #6 · answered by Ali D 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
A cookie is a little piece of information that a website sends you , usually when you have to log in. When you open another page on that website, your computer presents that cookie so the website remembers who you are.
2007-03-20 01:43:12 · answer #7 · answered by undercoloteal 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Cookies
Cookies are actually harmless text files that certain web sites will place onto the hard drive of your computer. Your Internet Browser will then load the information into memory while you are visiting their site. The Cookie itself, actually takes up very little space and acts as an identification card for the visiting site. You can compare this to visiting your favorite restaurant where your food server will usually remember certain aspects of how you like your food prepared and what you usually order. This information would obviously be based upon his familiarity of your prior visits. Well Cookies actually act in a similar manner and do not contain viruses as a virus must be executable file. Let us look at some of the ways that Cookies act as an identification card.
Why Sites Use Cookies?
There are numerous reasons why websites would want to use cookies. These range from statistical purposes, such as how many visitors came to the site. This can be further broken down into are they new visitors or actually repeating visitors and how often do they visit. The Website would actually create a unique id for each visitor and store this information into a database.
Cookies can be used to store your personal preferences, referred to as customizations, that you set while navigating their site. For instance, if you visit Yahoo.com, you can sign in to create your very own personal yahoo page where you can customize it according to your news and weather preferences after providing your zip code. You can even change the color of the page layout as well.
Online Shopping sites can use cookies to keep track of items that you add to their shopping carts and quick checkout options. The cookie will keep track of every item that you add to the shopping cart while you continue to browse through different pages or even entirely different sections of their site. Every item you add is stored within the Web site’s database along with a unique ID value that has been assigned to you. Therefore, when you select the check out option, the site automatically knows what items are in your cart by retrieving those selections from its database. This is why sites such as Amazon or eBay will prompt you to enable cookies in case you have disabled them.
Cookies also provide web designers and programmers with a quick and convenient method of keeping their site content fresh and up to date according to the interests of their users. Modern web servers use Cookies for back-end interaction as well, allowing them to securely store any personal data that the user has entered within a site. Therefore, on return visits the user now only has to enter partial information to access their account and purchases can be made quicker as their payment information is on file regarding their previous purchases.
In closing, as Cookies are actually small text files, they really can not damage your computer system or any files on your hard drive. Once again, they cannot transmit viruses as viruses are executable in nature. Some users may just not want to be tracked and this is one of the primary reasons why many people just disable accepting cookies.
2007-03-20 01:42:11 · answer #8 · answered by G 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Basically they hold information about the websites you visit, the date and time. For instance if you buy something online and place it in the shopping cart its stored in the cookie for the sites reference.
They are necessary for pretty much any site.
2007-03-20 01:44:27 · answer #9 · answered by Brock Lee 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋