http cookie

1 definition found

http cookie - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  HTTP cookie
  computer cookie
  
     <World-Wide Web> A system invented by Netscape to allow a
     web server to send a web browser a packet of information
     that will be sent back by the browser each time it accesses
     the same server.  Cookies can contain any arbitrary
     information the server chooses to put in them and are used to
     maintain state between HTTP transactions, which are
     otherwise stateless.  Typically this is used to authenticate
     or identify a registered user of a website without
     requiring them to sign in again every time they access it.
     Other uses are, e.g. maintaining a "shopping basket" of goods
     you have selected to purchase during a session at a site, site
     personalisation (presenting different pages to different
     users) or tracking which pages a user has visited on a site,
     e.g. for marketing purposes.
  
     The browser limits the size of each cookie and the number each
     server can store.  This prevents a malicious site consuming
     lots of disk space.  The only information that cookies can
     return to the server is what that same server previously sent
     out.  The main privacy concern is that, by default, you do not
     know when a site has sent or received a cookie so you are not
     necessarily aware that it has identified you as a returning
     user, though most reputable sites make this obvious by
     displaying your user name on the page.
  
     After using a shared login, e.g. in an Internet cafe, you
     should remove all cookies to prevent the browser identifying
     the next user as you if they happen to visit the same sites.
  
     Cookie Central (http://cookiecentral.com/c_concept.htm).
  
     (2004-08-26)