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There are a lot of misconceptions and fear out there about these things called ‘Cookies’. This week, I’ll try to clear up some of the confusion that might be out there and settle some fears. You may suddenly find yourself wondering if I am now writing a cooking article instead of my usual ‘Tech Tips’. I assure you that I would never try to tell anyone how to make kool-aid, much less actually cook something… No, cookies are indeed technical, and they serve a wonderful (and sometimes perhaps a bit sinister) purpose when we surf the web.

You see, the way the web works is that each time you click a link on a web page a brand new request is sent to the server hosting that page. For example, when you visit a site such as MikeBryant.com you see the main page on your browser. If you then click a link to search the site it opens a search page. That second click, when you opened the search page, was a brand new connection to the server—the computer running the site has no idea that you are the same person that just opened the main page. To the server, it’s just as if two people happened to visit, one going to the main page and another, a few seconds later, going straight to the search page. For you tech weenies out there, this is called ‘Stateless’, meaning that the server does not retain any state between requests. This is a somewhat simplistic view, but in a nutshell that’s how it works.

For most web pages, that is fine. Really, the server doesn’t need to know what other pages you have looked at on a site. But, what if you are checking your email or doing on-line banking? If the server didn’t keep track of who you are then you would have to type in your login information each time you clicked a link, and that would get very old very quick. A cookie is a tiny file that the server sends down to your computer. When you view a page on the website that originally generated the cookie your computer sends that file back up to the server. The server then looks at the cookie and knows it’s you and that you have already logged in and that it can trust you. That’s why you don’t have to login to each and every page when you check your email on the web. Usually a cookie is nothing more than a small file containing a very large random string of numbers and letters—each one unique so that two people never get the same cookie. It is harmless and, in fact, quite useful.

The other kinds of cookies, known as third-party cookies and Web Bugs, aren’t as benign. They are used to track a person’s habits on the web. For example, a Web Bug might be a little invisible image on a web page hosted on a third-party server. When you view any page on any site that has that particular Bug, your computer sends that server’s cookie to the third party server. It doesn’t know you personally, meaning it doesn’t know your name or address or anything like that, but it does allow that third-party to know that some anonymous user out there has visited all the sites containing that Web Bug. This is useful for advertisers and such so they can see that a particular computer has gone to a lot of motorcycle sites, for example, so you’ll be more likely to see a motorcycle ad than a car ad on a page. Many people have privacy concerns with this.

All browsers will let you reject cookies and even let you delete the cookies that are stored on your computer. Email me if you want to know how to do this.

Now, for the Cool Site of the Week... This week’s site is OurDocuments.gov. If you are an American History buff, or would just like to spend a few hours reading over famous documents in the history of our country, this is a great site. You can read all kinds of important documents, like Thomas Edison’s patent application for the light bulb, the Federalist Papers, and much more.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please email me at [email protected].

Mike Bryant has worked as a professional software developer for over ten years. A born entrepreneur, he currently owns Centrant, LLC, a software consulting firm specializing in custom software for small businesses. He currently resides in Jackson, Kentucky with his wife, two kids, and five computers. For more information, please visit MikeBryant.com.