Computer Science essay

Web Cookies are frequently used by many web servers through out the world for different purposes. They have been considered untrustworthy by many internet users and a matter of concern. This paper will discuss the usage of web cookies by browsers. Use of Cookies by Web Browsers: Cookies are basically parcels of data sent by web servers to the client’s browsers and resend by them. There are used for authentication, tracking and maintaining personalized information of users on certain websites.

The most important usage of cookies is in e-shopping as they all the shopping baskets not only need authentication but also needs to remember what goods the customer has bought. (Penenberg, 2005) Cookies are also used for Web analysis. The major usage of cookies is the personalization of websites by specific users. Like the colors, fonts and other outlook of a certain web page for example a certain user can change his hotmail live account according to his/her wish in different colors and can personalize it.

Cookies help saving all these personalized information so that when the user logs in again he sees all his personalization intact. Browsers use cookies to send personal information for authentication. For example when any one logs in his/her hotmail account the browser sent the user’s data which are examined by the hotmail server and if found according to the data, then the user is permitted to access his/her account. (Browser Cookies Basics, 2007)

References:

Adam L. Penenberg, (2005). Cookie Monsters; The Innocuous Text Files That Surfers Love to Hate, Slate, Downloaded from World Wide Web on 7th September, 2007 http://www.slate.com/id/2129656/