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People usually browse from site to site looking for answers and solutions for the queries and these sites ask for accepting some cookies. Knowingly or unknowingly, such cookies are accepted. The cookies seem delicious and confusing at the same time! The term was derived based on an earlier computer concept of ‘magic cookie’ that describes a data packet that remains the same when sent back and forth. However, what are cookies and how do they work?
A browser cookie also works similarly to the food cookie as it is traditionally used to remember someone who visited the house, browser cookies let a website remember information about a user’s website visits.
Browser cookies are small files that are stored on the browser of the user’s computer to help the website perform tasks. These are often encrypted files that help manage the website and some are important for the website’s essential performance. For creating personalized ads for each user, websites keep information like usernames, browser activities, and preferences on the browser. The website that the user visits sends cookies to the device to load a customized version for the user. It is to be noted that cookies are not only sent by websites but also by ads, widgets, and other website components.
Cookies enhance the user experience by storing necessary details like login preferences that make the website function smoothly. Some cookies are necessary for the website’s function and can be sent to the browser without consent from the user as it cannot function without them. Such cookies are essential to save data on the website. The rest of the cookies are only enabled by getting consent. The best example is the saved login details and wish list on an online shopping site.
As it is said that the web browser stores the cookies, for instance, Google Chrome can be taken into account, which stores the cookie on a file named Cookies and can be viewed by the users in developer tools.
Understanding the different kinds of cookies is necessary to comprehend when they expire.
Session cookies: Session cookies only last until the browser is closed and are used to store temporary data and information. These cookies help to track a user’s session on a website and the file expires once the session ends. Session cookies don’t have an expiry date as it gets deleted automatically once the user exits the website.
Persistent cookies: Persistent cookies don’t expire once the user exits the browser. These cookies remain on the browser even after the website is closed for a predetermined time period. Such cookies have an expiry date based on the need for the data to be stored.
Zombie cookies: These cookies can regenerate even after they are deleted as the name of the zombie indicates. Zombie cookies can bypass blocking restrictions and create backup versions outside the cookie storage location in a browser. Such cookies are used by advertisements and trackers to collect certain data of users.
Third-party cookies: Third-party cookies are mostly used for advertisements and data collection and are created by a website other than the user is visiting. Even if the user logs out of a website, another third-party website may be tracking the activities of the user.
Authentication cookies: These cookies manage user sessions by ensuring that sensitive information is recorded correctly. Authentication cookies are created when the user logs into a website through the browser.
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The data stored by enabling cookies can be expired based on the kind of cookies used by the website. The duration of the cookie’s life is set when it is created. As previously mentioned session cookies expire when the website or the browser window is closed. The expiry of cookies means that it is just a date in which the browser stops sending the data to the server. After the set date, the data is deleted by the browser.
Persistent cookies do not expire as session cookies and persist even after the browser windows are closed. These cookies are used by websites to send optimized ads to the device and enhance the overall performance. However, these cookies have a set expiry date issued by the webserver. The cookie will be saved on the device’s browser and is utilized especially for information like login details. The cookies will be destroyed by the owner itself once the expiry date is reached.
The expiration of the cookies is also determined by the clean-up algorithm of the browser and the browser can clean up the cookie once it is run. The expiration mechanism of cookies can be differentiated into expiration date and max-age attribute. The website sets the expiration date, and when that date is reached, the browser deletes the data. The cookie’s lifespan is specified by the max-age attribute, but in seconds. This makes the expiration more precise. The cookies would only be saved for a very short time limit and would be deleted instantly after that.
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Conclusion
Cookies are necessary to run websites and pages faster and smoother. These are text files that store certain data on the browser and will be deleted automatically once the predefined set time has been reached. The expiry date can be for seconds, days, weeks, months, or years. Cookies are of different types based on the need of running the website.
Many people view cookies as a privacy threat, whereas there are certain cookies like tracking cookies that can concern user privacy, but not every cookie collects personal data. It can be viewed and managed as well by the users in the browser settings.
