I'm scared of cookies!

The Internet and the cookie monster

Many of you, who have been using the internet for quite some time, have heard the expression to remove your cookies, delete your cookies, or get rid of them because they are bad. I am here to give you insight on what they are, how they work and why people think they are so bad.

What is a cookie?

A web browser cookie is just a plain text file which contains information pertaining to the website that you are currently visiting. Cookies can help the website you are visiting be more of use to you by remembering your username and password, or even other pieces of information. Without cookies, you wouldn't be able to get access to your hotmail account, gmail account, or any other site you have to login to. It's simple, cookies are a necessity.

How do cookies work?

A cookie can be stored on your computer for any reason the website sees fit. Don't be scared, they can only put a tiny amount of information in the file less than 4KB. If it's to give you a unique visitor number to keep track of where you go on the site, or to keep your user id and an encrypted version of your password, or even just to remember customized information for that site, cookies are used to do just that. If a webmaster has designed his site correctly, then the cookie can only be used on his website, or even only part of the website like a sub site or sub domain. If another site tries to get the cookie, your browser won't deliver it to them.

Why people think cookies are so bad?

There has been a lot of hype going around on the internet for many years that cookies are bad and have to be removed from my computer. Every time I hear someone talk about computer security, they ask me if I found any cookies in their computer. My answer to them is, yes their computer is swarming with them. Immediately there is a huge sense of fear, and I have to sit there and explain what cookies are. Why are people scared of cookies? People are scared of cookies, because it is information, personal or public, that is stored on the "computer". When people hear the notion of information being stored on their computer without their knowledge, I can see where it can create fear and distrust. The truth is that cookies help make the internet a better place, and without them we couldn't really do anything on the internet.

The internet has been a wonderful tool over the years, it has also been used as a means to spread fear and malicious software.