Posted by Racer on October 6, 1999, at 11:34:21
In reply to Anonymity and Cookies, posted by Susan on October 6, 1999, at 10:48:52
Small baked goods...
NO! Cookies are small bits of code which are used to store information on your computer. They can be used to authenticate access, to 'remember' your preferences or last visit here, to identify you to other sites within the same domain, or to irritate the heck out of people like me.
Overall, cookies are no big deal. The snippet of code is tiny, it's stored in a nice, small, compact area of your machine, and for the most part they're very benign little guys. My biggest objection is that they're often the lazy man's solution to a problem. Many companies turn off cookies at the server, which means that no one within that company can get to certain sites relying on cookies. Many times, those are the sites that someone might have to go to for work, so it's a real problem. The other reason some sites use them is so that you go to one site, order a bottle of shampoo, and then go to another site and look at a dress. Now, since both sites set cookies, you go to site number three and up pops a cute little coffee table screaming, "Hey, with that nice, shiny hair and that new dress, wouldn't I look great in your living room?"
Don't worry about cookies, or go to your preferences and disable them. Preferences are usually in the Edit menu, and somewhere in there there'll be a little spot where you can choose to disable them partially or completely.
And if you really wanna scare yourself, check out what happens if you set it to warn you before accepting cookies!
poster:Racer
thread:11754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/12649.html