Cookies: Boon or Bane?

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Mar 1, 1998

Recently there has been a lot of contraversy over Javascript Cookies. Hundreds of Cookie-destroying programs have come out, which really don't do much. Paranoia has struck net newbies concerning the security of downloading files off the internet. Well, let me tell you right here, Cookies are 100% safe.

The only thing cookies are capable of doing is saving information to your hard drive. The worst they can do is use up an extra 100k on your drive. This can be easily fixed by deleting it in your browser's prefs file. The only problem with Cookies is, because of their safety measures, they are severely limited in all other aspects as well.

Several javascript pages out there have javascript counters, which store using Cookies how many times you've been to the site personally. They can also store a username and password, eliminating a login phase with a secure server. But they can't store or call functions, or even act on their own, since they reside on the visitor's hard drive. Using javascript, you can only save information in a Cookie, then retrieve it at a later date. That's all they do. But this is extremely usefull for javascript shopping carts, User logins, saving preferences on a site, or any customizable site or internet feature.

A very cool and detailed description on how to use cookies can be found at Netscape's Javascript Guide.

If you do use Cookies on your site, it's proper Netiquite to tell visitors so, and to explain to them that Cookies aren't so bad.

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