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QUESTION:

Being new to the Internet, I hear about many things that I don’t understand. But at least most of them are well defined. I know for example that a virus is bad and that downloading software is good. But one item I keep hearing about seems to illicit both good and bad remarks and I can’t seem to find out what the truth really is. I am speaking about browser “cookies.” Could you explain in detail what they are and if they are a good or a bad thing.

ANSWER:

The heart of your problem stems from the fact that cookies can be perceived to be good or bad based upon ones point of view. If you are a privacy advocate, chances are you view cookies as a bad thing. If you like your surfing experience to be a lot less redundant and enjoy a degree of customization and automatic recognition when you revisit a web site, you will probably be in favor of them.

Basically, a cookie is a small data file that is created by a web site you are visiting and then stored along with other cookies in a special directory or folder that resides on your computer’s hard drive. The ability to create and maintain cookies is just another part of your web browser’s housekeeping functionality.

What a cookie can and cannot do has been blown way out of proportion by privacy extremists and their ilk. These alarmists would have us think that we are being tracked wherever we go, that the contents of our hard drives that hold our passwords and financial data are being accessed and stolen via Internet cookies. Give me a break.

All a cookie can contain is some basic information that deals mostly with where you’ve been on the web site that issued the cookie. For example, have you ever noticed that some web sites you revisit seem to remember the links on which you have already visited by dimming them? This can save you hours of redundant clicking on areas you’ve already seen. Or upon returning to a web site that asked for your name, email address or other information, have you noticed that it doesn’t ask you to enter everything all over again? This isn’t happening because the sites are reading your mind. They’re reading your cookies.

When you first access a cookie enabled site, it stores all of this volunteered information in a cookie file. When you return later on to the same web site, it looks for the special cookie it created. If it’s there, it reads it and your surfing experience moves along more quickly. Today’s popular browsers let you view the cookie files and let you selectively maintain or delete them. And unless it’s encrypted, you can view a cookie’s contents with most any text editor or word processor. There are even commercially available cookie editors that let you manage cookies in just about any way imaginable.

From a browser’s preferences or setup, you can select from different levels on how you want your browser to deal with cookies. You can have the browser alert you every time a cookie is being sent. But since a typical site visit may entail dozens of cookie updates, trust me when I say this can quickly become annoying. To tone things down and make things a lot more practical is to choose the option that lets the browser issue an alert only once per web site if it detects any cookies being sent. Or you can choose for the browser to either block or allow all cookies. If you’re worried at first, may I suggest you block all cookies and see how it goes. I think you’ll find your surfing experience goes along a lot more smoothly with them on.