More info coming later.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
What's been going on
You probably noticed that nothing has been happening here for quite a while. Well, it's because I plan to move this blog somewhere else. You guys will find out later. Also, I am going to change the topic of the blog too. It will focus pretty much exclusively on helping people know more about computers and things like that.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Delicious delicacies!
I happen to possess a tremendous wealth of knowledge about computers. Many people are new to computers or need help with them, or should just know more about them than they already do, so one of the reasons I created this blog is to share my knowledge. Therefore, as promised, here is an article explaining all about cookies; what they are, what they're for, what you should know.
Many people, when they hear of cookies, they think of them as these nasty viruses that websites try to give you when you browse the web. If you are one of these people, you are, as you probably have guessed by now, wrong. Cookies are a lot more innocent than you give them credit for. The general purpose of cookies is so that a website can recognize it's visitors without having to keep track of all of those people itself. Most of the sites you go to puts at least one cookie on your computer.
Let me explain in more detail. Actually, better yet, let me give you an example of what a cookie would be used for. Let's say you log in to your mail account on your personal home computer. After you're finished, you close your web browser and watch some TV, and when you finish the show a half hour later and go back to your computer to check your mail again, it doesn't ask you to log in again. What happened is that the webmail site you used placed a cookie on your computer to remember you. Every time someone loads the webmail site, it checks the computer for the special log-in cookie first, to find out whether or not you should automatically log in or not. This way, the website doesn't have to remember you itself, because your own computer identifies itself with the cookie it gave you.
Here's another example: What if you were to do a Google search, and you told Google that you wanted it to display 50 results per page instead of just 10. Google will put a cookie on your computer with the setting, and the next time you do a Google search, Google will know that you want to see 50 results per page instead of ten by recalling the cookie stored on your computer. Cookies can also be used for things like keeping track of the products that you buy on a particular website so that the website's advertisers can deliver more relevant advertising.
You might be wondering, "With all the websites I've ever visited, won't these horrid cookies eventually fill up my entire hard drive?" Well, don't you think that web browser developers didn't already think of this before you? Web browsers allocate a limited amount of storage space for cookies. Not only that, but cookies are nothing more than really small text files. Rest easy.
You might also be wondering, "If cookies are completely harmless, how come my antivirus program is always alerting me that I have tons of tracking cookies that I should delete?" Well, have you noticed that your antivirus programs usually label them as having a very low urgency? The reasons why an antivirus program would catch these cookies is because those cookies are probably storing things like records of the types of ads that you've clicked before (or something similar), which would be useful to advertisers to decide what types of ads you should see when you browse the web, to try to make the ads as relevant as possible. Antivirus programs may flag cookies like this, however they probably also tell you that they are pretty harmless, too.
Cookies are not programs. They are just little snips of info so websites that you revisit remember you. They are nothing more than that. It is impossible for a cookie to be an actual virus, because they are not executable and they are just records. They can't make your computer slower either, because they don't do anything except sit there on your computer and get read by websites. If you use a secure, standards-compliant browser such as Mozilla Firefox, then websites can only read the cookies that particular website gave to you, and websites don't have access to cookies that were from another website.
So, the bottom line is, cookies are harmless. In fact, many websites can not even function properly without relying on the use of cookies, such as webmail. In general, you should have cookies turned on when browsing the web. Also, there is no harm in periodically clearing your cookies either. It doesn't matter.
That's it for tonight. I hope you check back soon, because the next post will be about another often misunderstood thing, web advertising! Until then, please leave your comments below. Thanks for reading.
Many people, when they hear of cookies, they think of them as these nasty viruses that websites try to give you when you browse the web. If you are one of these people, you are, as you probably have guessed by now, wrong. Cookies are a lot more innocent than you give them credit for. The general purpose of cookies is so that a website can recognize it's visitors without having to keep track of all of those people itself. Most of the sites you go to puts at least one cookie on your computer.
Let me explain in more detail. Actually, better yet, let me give you an example of what a cookie would be used for. Let's say you log in to your mail account on your personal home computer. After you're finished, you close your web browser and watch some TV, and when you finish the show a half hour later and go back to your computer to check your mail again, it doesn't ask you to log in again. What happened is that the webmail site you used placed a cookie on your computer to remember you. Every time someone loads the webmail site, it checks the computer for the special log-in cookie first, to find out whether or not you should automatically log in or not. This way, the website doesn't have to remember you itself, because your own computer identifies itself with the cookie it gave you.
Here's another example: What if you were to do a Google search, and you told Google that you wanted it to display 50 results per page instead of just 10. Google will put a cookie on your computer with the setting, and the next time you do a Google search, Google will know that you want to see 50 results per page instead of ten by recalling the cookie stored on your computer. Cookies can also be used for things like keeping track of the products that you buy on a particular website so that the website's advertisers can deliver more relevant advertising.
You might be wondering, "With all the websites I've ever visited, won't these horrid cookies eventually fill up my entire hard drive?" Well, don't you think that web browser developers didn't already think of this before you? Web browsers allocate a limited amount of storage space for cookies. Not only that, but cookies are nothing more than really small text files. Rest easy.
You might also be wondering, "If cookies are completely harmless, how come my antivirus program is always alerting me that I have tons of tracking cookies that I should delete?" Well, have you noticed that your antivirus programs usually label them as having a very low urgency? The reasons why an antivirus program would catch these cookies is because those cookies are probably storing things like records of the types of ads that you've clicked before (or something similar), which would be useful to advertisers to decide what types of ads you should see when you browse the web, to try to make the ads as relevant as possible. Antivirus programs may flag cookies like this, however they probably also tell you that they are pretty harmless, too.
Cookies are not programs. They are just little snips of info so websites that you revisit remember you. They are nothing more than that. It is impossible for a cookie to be an actual virus, because they are not executable and they are just records. They can't make your computer slower either, because they don't do anything except sit there on your computer and get read by websites. If you use a secure, standards-compliant browser such as Mozilla Firefox, then websites can only read the cookies that particular website gave to you, and websites don't have access to cookies that were from another website.
So, the bottom line is, cookies are harmless. In fact, many websites can not even function properly without relying on the use of cookies, such as webmail. In general, you should have cookies turned on when browsing the web. Also, there is no harm in periodically clearing your cookies either. It doesn't matter.
That's it for tonight. I hope you check back soon, because the next post will be about another often misunderstood thing, web advertising! Until then, please leave your comments below. Thanks for reading.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Turbulence...
I have recently done some major stuff to my Google Account, and the site has been down for a short amount of time. In addition to that, some of the site has been lost. However, everything is back to normal now. I will be updating this blog again soon, so check back later.
Also, if you happen to know me, please be aware that I have a different email address now, as part of the modifications I was applying to my Google Account. Do not send any more emails to my old address, or you will be taking a security risk, as someone else could claim my old address at any time and then that person will recieve any new mail sent to that address. I will not recieve any email sent to that address.
Instead, contact me through my new email address.
Also, if you happen to know me, please be aware that I have a different email address now, as part of the modifications I was applying to my Google Account. Do not send any more emails to my old address, or you will be taking a security risk, as someone else could claim my old address at any time and then that person will recieve any new mail sent to that address. I will not recieve any email sent to that address.
Instead, contact me through my new email address.
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