Posted by Larry Hoover on March 17, 2005, at 17:58:57
In reply to Re: What's a cookie? (nm), posted by ed_uk on March 17, 2005, at 16:09:15
A mixture of butter, flour, sugar, and flavourings, heated in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes....
Oh, you don't mean that kind, do you?
A cookie is a small file written in a public part of your hard drive. It contains bits of information that identify you (that's how sites can automatically log you in, or identify you "Welcome, ed_uk!"). It could also contain information about what you do at a site (that's how Babble knows if you've seen a message before, or not). There are also some malicious or so-called "tracking cookies", that can make information about you available to people that you didn't authorize to have it.
Lord knows why they're called cookies.
If you're using Windoze, there's a whole folder of them in Documents and Settings/Username/Cookies
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:471110
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050219/msgs/472212.html