In computing, cookies are small HTTP files that a computer automatically stores when a user visits a webpage.
They are kept so the system can open web pages faster and bespoke them to the user as the saved data gives an idea of the user’s behaviour and needs based on previous visits.
These files can be accessed by the user’s computer or the web server. Every time a webpage is loaded on a browser, a new cookie is created.
Click to find out why cookies are called cookies.
It was back in the 1990s that cookies were first used. They were an idea of web browser programmer Louis J. Montulli II.
When he worked on HTTP cookies, Montulli borrowed the term from ‘magic cookie’. This is a short packet of data that is transferred between communicating programs.
In a broad sense, the is what a web cookie also is: a short and small packet of data that is passed between a user’s computer and a web server.
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