Cookies
A cookie is a tiny HTML-based document that users download automatically from certain websites just by visiting. Cookies are used generally to enhance the experience of the site’s users. Viewing cookies firsthand is helpful for understanding the concepts outlined in this section.
See For Yourself
If you’re using Internet Explorer, go to Tool then click on Internet Options. In the General tab, click on Browsing history Setting button Now click on the View files button:
If you’re using Mozilla Firefox, the procedure is similar. Go to Tools, and then click on Options. Go to the Privacy tab, and then click on Show Cookies like below:
If a user has cookies enabled in his or her web browser, each time that user visits certain websites that use cookies, the site will transmit the cookie to the computer, where the cookie is downloaded into a folder. This folder, and the cookies themselves, are all maintained by the web browser. In the above exercise, where you saw your own cookies, you saw the pages where cookies are held What did you see in the cookies folder? For the most part, you probably saw a row of boring looking .txt files, or Notepad files or rows of folders. You probably recognize the names of some of these files and folders as websites to which you’ve been recently. Others you might not recognize at all.
The Purpose of Cookies
What do these cookies do? They help provide an interactive environment for users when they visit web pages. If a website can get a user’s computer to save a small bit of information, that website can know who the user is, even if the user leaves and comes back later. The site can use that cookie to help make shopping carts on shopping websites, to remember user’s personalized settings, or to specify information just for a particular user. For example, some advertising is based on cookies that are saved on a user’s computer.
Web designers may want to use cookies for several reasons. First, using cookies can enhance the browsing experience for visitors of the site. If a visitor knows that the website is interacting with them and remembering their settings, shopping carts, and other information, that customer may come back more often. Still other web designers will use cookies to generate revenue. If a site is associated with an affiliate marketing program in which affiliates get a cut of any sale made by another company for which the affiliate is working—yes I know this sounds complicated—then cookies are sometimes used to assure that affiliates are being paid correctly. For more on affiliate marketing, please see the advertising and marketing section of this book.
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