I'm assuming this is asking about web cookies. As that's what I
am familiar with, I'll offer this explanation:
At 9:40 PM -0400 4/4/01, Chester Smalley wrote:
>Would someone be kind enough to explain "Cookies" to me?
Cookies -- in this context (probably) -- are little snippets of
information which a web server would store on your computer. Why
do this? Usually so they can provide some service to you. Your
browser does the actual storing.
Here's an example -- let's say you visit my web site and I ask
you "what version of the site would you like? the screenreader
or the graphical version?" You might answer "the screenreader"
and my server would send a response to your browser which tells
your browser to store the value "screenreader = yes" as relates
to the web site at www.kynn.com.
Each cookie is associated with a specific web site, and when you
visit that web site, your browser will return the value of the
appropriate cookies to that site. It does this pretty much
automatically, and will only give sites cookies which are
associated with that site -- that is to say, those which were set
by that web site.
>My son, also a blind computer user is planning to download something forwhich
>"cookies" need to be enabled on his system and neither he nor I know what
>that means.
Most web browsers allow you to disable cookies. Why would you
want to do this? Because you might be concerned about privacy.
Cookies can be used, for example, to track your browsing
habits. How? Well, let's say that if you visit the site, and
you don't have a cookie, I will send you a code number -- say
that you're user #32342. Then each time you visit the site
again, I get back the cookie user = #32342. Then I can track
and know that so-and-so a user has been to <x> and <y> and
<z> pages on my web site.
This gets even more sneaky when someone is including images
which are actually on someone else's server in their web pages,
such as banner ads or counters. The web page you look at may
be www.kynn.com but the banner at the top could be from
ads.bigbannerads.com. Your browser would request the graphic
from ads.bigbannerads.com and thus they would set and receive
the cookie tracking you. If you go to ANOTHER site using ads
from ads.bigbannerads.com, they would know you were just over
at www.kynn.com because they can read the cookie associated with
the banner ads. So they can track you across the web using
cookies.
This is a privacy concern for many people, so you will find some
folks will disable cookies. Browsers come with cookies enabled
by default, so unless you have taken some action to turn it off
(e.g. by going into Preferences in Internet Explorer), you probably
have cookies enabled in your browser. Some very old browsers
might not have cookie support, also.
Hope this helps.
--Kynn
--
Kynn Bartlett <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.kynn.com/
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