Since the inception of the Internet, founders have playfully bestowed food-related names upon various elements. One notable example is the “hamburger menu,” consisting of three lines resembling two buns and a patty. Users click on the “hamburger” to begin navigating the site. Another instance is the implementation of “breadcrumbs” on websites. These hierarchical menus display the path or “trail” of links, aiding users navigating back to previous pages.
Let’s delve into the topic at hand — cookies, yet another term derived from the culinary realm. In fact, cookies hold significance for websites across the Internet.
What exactly is a cookie?
A cookie refers to a stored piece of data originating from a website. Users may be concerned about website “storing” their data and sites sometimes prompt you with an alert that it is “tracking” you using cookies. But what exactly does this mean? And is it always a negative? Not necessarily.
Consider a user visiting a website for the first time. The developer may check for the existence of a cookie named “newsletter.” If such a cookie is absent, the developer’s code would prompt a pop-up asking the user to subscribe to their newsletter. However, it would be rather bothersome if this pop-up appeared each time the site loaded. Thus, once the newsletter pop-up is displayed, the developer would create a cookie to be stored in the user’s browser. This cookie ensures that the pop-up does not reappear when the user revisits the site.
See? Cookies aren’t all bad.
There are many other scenarios where a cookie would come in handy, but it would take a long time to go over each case. We just wanted to give you a basic example in case you did not know how these delicious treats affected your internet experience.