Cookie

Cookies are small, often encrypted text files, located in browser directories. They are used by web developers to help users navigate their websites efficiently and perform certain functions. Due to their core role of enhancing/enabling usability or site processes, disabling cookies may prevent user from using certain websites.Without cookies, websites and their servers have no memory.Without a cookie every time you open a new web page the server where that page is stored will treat you like a completely new visitor.

Cookies are created when browser loads a particular website. The website sends information to the browser which then creates a text file. Every time the user goes back to the same website, the browser retrieves and sends this file to the website’s server. Computer Cookies are created not just by the website the user is browsing but also by other websites that run ads, widgets, or other elements on the page being loaded. These cookies regulate how the ads appear or how the widgets and other elements function on the page.

Session cookies—-Session cookies enable the website you are visiting to keep track of your movement from page to page so you don’t get asked for the same information you’ve already given to the site. Cookies allow you to proceed through many pages of a site quickly and easily without having to authenticate or reprocess each new area you visit. Session cookies allow users to be recognized within a website so any page changes or item or data selection you do is remembered from page to page. The most common example of this functionality is the shopping cart feature of any e-commerce site. When you visit one page of a catalog and select some items, the session cookie remembers your selection so your shopping cart will have the items you selected when you are ready to check out. Without session cookies, if you click CHECKOUT, the new page does not recognize your past activities on prior pages and your shopping cart will always be empty.

Persistent cookies—Persistent cookies help websites remember your information and settings when you visit them in the future. This result in faster and more convenient access since, for example, you don’t have to login again.Besides authentication, other website features made possible by persistent cookies include: language selection, theme selection, menu preferences, internal site bookmarks.During your visit, you select your preferences and these preferences are remembered, through the use of the persistent cookie, the next time you visit the site.  For example, a website may offer its contents in different languages. On your first visit, you may choose to have the content delivered in Hindi and the site may record that preference in a persistent cookie set on your browser. When you revisit that site it will use the cookie to ensure that the content is delivered in Hindi.

Cookies are not viruses.Cookies use a plain text format. They are not compiled pieces of code so they cannot be executed nor are they self-executing. Accordingly, they cannot make copies of themselves and spread to other networks to execute and replicate again. Since they cannot perform these functions, they fall outside the standard virus definition.