A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is usually a
small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while a user is browsing
a website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the coobe retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user's previous activity. Cookies were
designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember the state of the website or activity
the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record
of which pages were visited by the user even months or years ago. Other kinds of cookies are the
authentication cookies, which is used by web servers to know whether the user is logged in or not,
and which account they are logged in under. Without such a mechanism, the site would not know
whether to send a page containing sensitive information, or require the user to authenticate himself
by logging-in.
Although cookies cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on the host computer,
tracking cookies and especially third-party tracking cookies are commonly used as ways to
compile long-term records of individuals' browsing histories — a major privacy concern that has
prompted many governments to take action.
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