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Cookies
What they are & how they work
by Emily Wilska
If you're anything like me, whenever you see the word "cookie," you immediately start thinking, "Chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, mmm …" Sure, those are the ones you're most likely to find on your baker's shelves. But did you know you can also find cookies on the Internet? Cookies are electronic packets of information, that can help make surfing easier and more useful. Read on to learn more.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small programs built into Web pages. These programs help the sites you visit keep track of you — what pages you visit on the site, what information you enter, and so on. Among the most common cookies are those that let you automatically log in to sites that require a user name and password, and those that keep tabs on items you put in a shopping cart when you're shopping online.
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How do they work?
Cookies are passed back and forth between the server of the Web site you're visiting (the server is the computer that hosts the site) and the browser on your MSN TV box. When you visit a site that uses cookies, it hands the cookies to your browser. The browser stores the cookies, and passes them back to the server the next time you visit that site.
Say you happen upon a site that asks you to create a user name and password and to answer a few questions about where you live and what your interests are. When you first reach this site, it'll pass cookies to your browser. When you make up a user name and password and answer the questions, your browser will store all of this information in those same cookies. The next time you return to the site, it will hand the cookies back to the Web site's server. The site will then be able to welcome you personally and will present information that's of interest to you.
For example, let's say you sign up as "yourname," use "mypassword" as your password, and answer that you live in Boise and like hiking, cooking, and reading travel books. The next time you visit the site, it will automatically log you in and will show you information related to your interests — such as Idaho politics, hiking the Appalachian Trail, poaching eggs, and the latest Bill Bryson book.
There are two different kinds of cookies: static (or persistent) and session. Static cookies are stored by your browser for a set length of time (sometimes a few days, sometimes a few months) before they expire. Session cookies are set to expire as soon as you turn off your box. If a site that usually shows personalized content when you visit it suddenly doesn't, there's a good chance the cookies that stored your information have expired, and you may be asked to re-enter some of this info.
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Making cookies work for you
Not all Web sites use cookies in the same way. Some might use them to keep track of how often you visit and what pages you look at while you're at the site; some might use them to make it easier to sign in and get around; and some might use them to show you advertisements for products and services they think you'll buy. It's not always easy — or possible — to tell what sites you visit are using cookies or what they're doing with them.
Many sites that require you to sign in will give you the option of automatically logging in; look for words like "Remember me" or "Sign in automatically" to have those sites use cookies to remember your name and password.
If a Web site asks you to register, provide information about where you live and what you do, and answer questions about your interests, there's a good chance the site might use that information to show you customized content. Similarly, some online stores will use cookies to remember what you've purchased there and show you other products and services that might interest you the next time you visit.
Most reputable Web sites will only use information you provide for their own purposes — signing you in or showing you ads for products you might like, for instance — but it doesn't hurt to be careful with the info you give out. Many Web sites have privacy policies; you may want to read these before you provide information like your e-mail address or your real name. If you think a Web site has abused info you've given out, you should contact that site directly with your concerns.
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Viewing and deleting cookies
Want to learn more about using remote mail with MSN TV? Check out the remote mail help section. You may also want to refer to your other mail program's help section on using POP3 mail.
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Enjoy!
The next time your favorite Web site remembers your password for you or shows you weather and news for your city, take a moment to think about the cookies working behind the scene to store your personalized info. In the meantime, all this talk of cookies has made me hungry, so I'm off to the bakery down the street to pick up a few of the real things — snickerdoodle, anyone?
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