Before moving ahead we should understand what a term cookie is ?

 It is a small piece of Text string  placed in the user's memory ( System ), by  a host that is being visited. Why it is placed ? And How it is used ? are the two questions that a  user should understand and use it according to personal preferences, like the trust you place with a website being visited with respect to your online privacy.

 A cookie is used for many purposes including authentication, session tracking or  remembering the user preferences such as shopping carts and other data.

Authentication involves a host to know a particular user’s information and simultaneously it can allow it to log in at the terminal.  Here, a browser needs to accept the cookie,  without doing so, you may not be able to access the service.

Session tracking as the name itself suggests, is used to track the amount of time spent by a user at a website and other related info.

Also we understand, by remembering the preferences of a user such as shopping carts and other data, lets a host or other third party hosts know the details of user’s spending and this data further used in business targeting.

As you know now that a cookie is very helpful when it is used in a proper manner, but sometimes there are many bad sites which attack computers online, it is well advised to be cautious and you can enable switch it on and off  according to your preferences and trust which you place with the website. Browser security will be further discussed in the next post.