What is Website Cookies?

In simple terms,

a cookie is a short string of text that the browser stores when it is received from a specific website which it then will send for each following visit to the same website. This can be used for different things, the most important is implementing login and tracking a user across different visits.

Think of it as a piece of paper that has a text string on it that you are handed when you go through the door of a company that you keep and will show at the door each time you go to the same company.

What is Website Cookies?

Website cookies have been explained beautifully by?David J.Malan in CS50. Suppose you go to a club, and when you are about to enter, the bouncer stamps a mark on your hand. Now after a little while, you have to receive an urgent call from your boss, so you go outside the club to talk.

After you finish talking and try to enter the club again, the bouncer first checks your hand. Since your hand is marked, he understands that you have been here before and thus allows you to enter without any problem. In a way, it remembers your previous entry.

Website cookies operate similarly, such that when you visit a new website, you are given a cookie. When you leave and return, that cookie is still there associated with you, and thus as the website remembers your visit, it can serve you better.

Cookies are files created by websites you visit. They are small files of code created by the websites. They help to remember things about your visit to the website. They save information from your session (time spent on a website) to send back to the website and tell it the information when you visit the site again.

The three big things they’re used for are session management, personalization, and tracking.

For example, when you log into?MihadAhmed.com, it can remember that you’re logged in. If you delete your cookie history you’ll be logged out of?MihadAhmed.com.

What are the biggest Misconceptions about Website Cookies?

The most notable uses of cookies are “keep me logged in” and remembering simple things without forcing you to create an account (ex. your shopping cart). If you block all cookies, you’ll have to log in every time you visit that website, and your settings/preferences won’t be saved. You’ll have to dismiss that pop-up to sign up for their mailing list every time.

Cookies enable richer functionality on websites and actually can improve your privacy. In a world without cookies, every website will require you to create an account and sign in before you can use it because there would be no other way to deliver key features to you. All your data will be stored on their servers. Cookies are stored only on your computer and you can control/delete them.

We shouldn’t be so quick to view cookies as evil. We should be pushing for a web with more transparency and control over cookies, which is what the EU’s GDPR is doing. We should be able to decline tracking cookies but allow a website to remember that we like the dark theme more. If we simply get rid of all cookies, we might end up having less privacy on the web and a more frustrating experience.

How do you know when it’s safe to allow Cookies on a Website?

Cookies are usually stored in the user’s computer, somewhere, nevertheless, the coder can define a specific place where to store such data to have it available when needed. So, trying to find where the information resides on your computer can be a difficult task.

Anyway, let’s say you find it. The information stored may be just text chains which mean nothing for humans but mean everything for the page. You can’t anyway define all the times if a place has “secure cookies”. It is supposed they shouldn’t be harmful but they instruct the web browser or the page to behave in a certain way. And some pages won’t allow you to navigate through its information if you don’t accept the cookies.

So we can say accepting cookies is not an option. That’s why some pages don’t show a cancel button. Just an accept button and if you close the notification bar equal to pressing the accept button.

Do Website cookies help to track consumer behavior?

Yes, website cookies can help to track consumer behavior.

Cookies are used for identification. It’s like a consumer shows his ID card each time he serfs the web.

As soon as you recognize the user, you can track almost every move he or she makes while scrolling your webpages (loading pages, playing video, clicking buttons, sending web forms) – depending on your website settings.

Third parties can collect information about the consumer’s behavior across all websites which support third-party cookies.

Cookies help to analyze how the consumer travels through purchasing funnel, how much time does it take to make a purchasing decision, which item does he or she abandon, etc.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of website cookies?

Advantages Of Cookies:

• Persistence:?one of the most powerful aspects of cookies is their persistence. If a cookie is installed in the client’s browser, it can take days, months, or even years. This makes it easy to save user preferences and visit information and keep this information available each time the user returns to your site. Since cookies are stored on the client’s hard drive, they are always available in case of server failure.
• Transparent:?Cookies work transparently without the user knowing that the information needs to be stored.
• Free up memory on the server.

Disadvantages Of Cookies:

• Sometimes, customers disable cookies in their browsers in response to security or privacy concerns that cause problems for web applications that need them. Individual cookies can contain a very limited amount of information (no more than 4KB).
• Cookies are limited to single-string information. You cannot record complex information. Cookies are easily accessible and readable when the user finds them and opens them again.
• Most browsers limit the number of cookies that a single domain can set to a maximum of 20 cookies (except Internet Explorer). If you try to set more than 20 cookies, the oldest cookies will be automatically deleted.

Conclusion

Nowadays, Website cookies are important for a better user experience. There are lots of advantages and disadvantages of allowing website cookies but generally, we should allow website cookies for a better user experience. And in the meantime, we have to know about the advantages and disadvantages of allowing website cookies. And after that, we will know where to allow website cookies and where not to.

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