What Is A Cookie?

A cookie (also called an HTTP cookie) is a small piece of coded data that is stored on the user’s computer or smart device by the web browser while entering and browsing a website. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember stateful information or to record the user’s browsing activity.

A Cookie is essential to the modern internet but a vulnerability to your privacy as a necessary part of web browsing, https cookie help marketers and businesses to improve their marketing efforts and website user’s experience by making it more personal and convenient website visits. Cookie let websites remember you, your website logins, shopping carts and more. While most cookies are perfectly safe, some can be used to track you without your consent.

What is Cookie Example?
Cookie is most used to track website activity which occurs when a user visit a website, the website hosting server places a cookie on the user’s computer that acts as an identification card. When a visitor returns to that website, the browser passes that cookie details back to the website’s hosting server providing the information that was gathered before on the users activities while visiting the website.

Cookie is also used for online shopping. Online stores often use cookies that record any personal information you enter, as well as any items in your electronic shopping cart, so that you don’t need to re-enter this information each time you visit the site.

What Do Cookies Do?
The main purpose of a cookie is to help the website keep track of users’ visits and activity such as keep track of the items in a user’s shopping cart as they explore the site.  Without cookies, users’ shopping cart would reset to zero every time they clicked a new link on the website moving to a different page which will make the process of purchasing online with a shopping cart almost impossible.

A website might also use cookies to keep a record of your most recent visit or to record your login information.  Many people find this useful so that they can store passwords on commonly used sites, or simply so they know what they have visited or downloaded in the past.