What do people think of cookies. The computer kind?

Question

Are thay an invasion of privacy?

Answer 1

Cookies are not uniform in purpose, so a single answer does not tell you what you wanted to know.

Some cookies are definitely invasions of privacy. On my browser, I have placed a checkmark in the security settings to disallow "3rd party" cookies. That is, you visit nytimes.com to read some news article and get a cookie for whoopdedoo.com as a side-effect - because of some ad or because the nytimes page got hacked. This is, in my opinion, never a good thing to allow.

However, you need to know this: When you browse, your machine doesn't retain state information from page to page UNLESS you use a cookie to do it. Like, if you visit the citibank credit-card page so you can pay your monthly bill, you need to log in. But every page you open is technically an independent thing, so once you log in, the next page has no way to know about it - unless the login page stored a cookie. This is what is called a "1st party" cookie and is a necessary part of using web pages that have secured logins.

Answer 2

After an average day of surfing I generate about 100 cookies on my computer. Of that I would say that less then 10% are trackers. Are they an invasion? Depends who's handing them out, just like real cookies in a grocery store.

Answer 3

Some cookies are ok. Not to worry, they know everything about you from the first time you connected to the internet. No one has any privacy any more. It doesn't matter who you are. Sorry I don't mean to scare you, but it's true.There are settings on cookies on your computer and any antivirus program you have also.

Answer 4

Cookies are purely small .txt (text cloth) archives that by using themselves won't be able to harm your laptop. Cookies are "set" by using enormously much each information superhighway-internet site which you circulate to, on each circulate to. you are able to delete all your cookies immediately and by using the next day you are able to desire to have dozens back purely be travelling information superhighway-web pages. Cookies do no longer decelerate a working laptop or laptop, a minimum of the 1st million or so as which you are going to have on your laptop! they are actually not a scourge or spyware, yet some people evaluate "monitoring" cookies to be an invasion of privateness. monitoring cookies are oftentimes "third occasion cookies" from merchandising servers. they could music your strikes around the internet with the intention to furnish to you custom, centred merchandising. it somewhat relies upon on ones very own point of paranoia whether you communicate approximately monitoring cookies some form of possibility. some anti-spyware classes do no longer even rfile monitoring cookies as even a minor possibility. in case you're utilising information superhighway Explorer for a browser, you are able to completely block all third occasion (monitoring) cookies. circulate to strategies > information superhighway ideas > privateness > better > verify-mark "override computerized cookie coping with" > 0.33 occasion cookies > tick "block" > ok > ok. babies are the individuals that are continuously the main traumatic approximately cookies. because of the fact cookies are an basic way for Mommy and Daddy to be sure precisely what their darling 'lil b@$^@#d$ have been finding at on the internet. in my opinion, If I ensue to keep in mind it, i visit delete my cookies each 6 months or so :-) Cookies are lots ado approximately nothin'.

Answer 5

Well i think not really because they don't really do anything, unless a trojan or virus, but wait until called upon to deliver faster page loading time.

Answer 6

I find they are very intrusive but a necessary evil to easily navigate the sites you visit often.