Home » Support » Online Help » Security and Privacy » Understanding Cookies
Understanding Cookies
What are internet cookies?
Internet cookies, unlike the baked variety, are totally inedible! They are very small text files that are issued by websites, downloaded by your browser, temporarily stored, and later read by the issuing website. They serve a number of purposes but one of the most common uses is to maintain "session state" while using a web application.
What is a "session cookie"?
When you login to a website, you are allocated a random and unique session ID number which is stored on your PC via a cookie. The web application then uses this ID to associate your user account with your activity on that website, for the duration of the session.
Session cookies are usually cleared when you logout of the website in question, quit out of your browser, or simply after a set period of inactivity or time. It is worth considering that, without such a means of maintaining session state, you would otherwise have to enter your login details on every single page refresh of the web application and for every single interaction - such as every button click - obviously a completely impractical solution.
This type of cookie usage is completely harmless and does not present any type of privacy or security threat whatsoever. However, other types of cookie can potentially infringe on privacy to a certain extent, and it is therefore reasonable to exercise a degree of common sense in determining how your browser should deal with cookies.
What is a "third party cookie"?
Third party cookies are those cookies that are issued by sites other than the main site that is being browsed. For example, an advertising network may serve ads to thousands of different websites. When you view one of these ads on a site, your browser is issued with a third party cookie from the ad network. This allows the ad network to later read this cookie when you visit another site that they also serve ads to. These cookies can be used to profile browsing activity across multiple sites.
Note that each cookie can only be read by the site that issued it. Thus, the advertising network in the example given above cannot obtain any information about your visits to other sites that they do not serve ads to. There is also no way that the ad network can personally identify you, unless you directly supply your details to them.
Third party cookies do have some genuine uses, but most often they are simply being used to track (anonymous) user activity so that advertising messages can be tweaked.
Anti-malware software and cookies
Unfortunately, many anti-spyware and anti-adware programs promote fear and misunderstanding of the implications and nature of cookies. Fear may help to sell software, but it certainly doesn't help users to understand the situation or protect their privacy. Furthermore, these programs are notorious for sometimes displaying unhelpful warning messages in response to harmless cookies, while overlooking other advertising-related cookies.
Some common myths about cookies
Let's clear up some common misunderstandings.
From Wikipedia:
- Myth: Cookies are like worms and viruses in that they can erase data from the user's hard disks;
- Myth: Cookies are a form of spyware in that they can read personal information stored on the user's computer;
- Myth: Cookies generate popups;
- Myth: Cookies are used for spamming;
- Myth: Cookies are only used for advertising.
Cookies are in fact only data, not program code: they cannot erase or read information from the user's computer.[6]
Sensible suggestions for dealing with cookies
Without going into any further detail about cookies, we will simply offer some suggestions:
1. Accept session cookies as a fact of life on the internet.
You will require session cookies to be enabled for those websites and applications that you wish to login to. As discussed above, this does not pose any privacy or security threat in and of itself.
2. Reject (most) third party cookies.
We recommend that you set your browser to disallow all third party cookies by default, as these are mostly used for marketing purposes, and can, in certain circumstances, result in an infringement of privacy.
In some cases, 3rd party cookies are required for a website to function. For example, they are often necessary for so-called "mashup" sites. This is because these sites require a secondary login to a 3rd party web service. In such instances, you will need to allow cookies for the relevant sites.
3. Use Firefox and customise its settings.
To best implement suggestions #1 and #2, we recommend using the Firefox web browser, installing the recommended privacy-protecting add-ons, and configuring the appropriate settings. It is then a simple matter to improve browsing privacy while still allowing normal functionality for legitimate websites that you wish to login to.
Please Refer to our Get Firefox and Firefox Settings pages for simple, comprehensive instructions.