What is a cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any web page. The purpose of the cookie is to make the web able to remember your visit when you return to browse that page. Although many people do not know, cookies have been used for 20 years, since the first browsers for the World Wide Web appeared.
What is not a cookie?
It is not a virus, a trojan, a worm, spam, spyware, or pop-up windows.
What information does a cookie store?
Cookies do not usually store sensitive information about you, such as credit cards or bank data, photographs, your ID or personal information, etc. The data they keep is of a technical nature, personal preferences, content personalization, etc.
The web server does not associate you as a person but rather your web browser. In fact, if you regularly browse with Internet Explorer and try to browse the same web with Firefox or Chrome, you will see that the web does not realize you are the same person because it actually associates with the browser, not the person.
What types of cookies exist?
Technical cookies: These are the most basic and allow, among other things, to know when a human or an automated application is browsing, when an anonymous user and a registered one are browsing, basic tasks for the functioning of any dynamic web.
Analysis cookies: They collect information about the type of browsing you are doing, the sections you use the most, products consulted, time slot of use, language, etc.
Advertising cookies: They show advertising based on your browsing, your country of origin, language, etc.
Personalization cookies: These are the ones that allow the user to access the service with some predefined general characteristics based on a series of criteria in the user’s terminal, such as the language or the type of browser through which they connect to the service.
What are first-party and third-party cookies?
First-party cookies are generated by the page you are visiting, and third-party cookies are generated by external services or providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What happens if I disable cookies?
To help you understand the extent to which you can disable cookies, here are some examples:
- You will not be able to share content from that website on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network.
- The website will not be able to adapt the content to your personal preferences, as usually happens in online stores.
- You will not be able to access the personal area of that website, such as My account, My profile, or My orders.
- Online stores: It will be impossible for you to make purchases online, you will have to be done by phone or by visiting the physical store if available.
- It will not be possible to personalize your geographic preferences such as time zone, currency, or language.
- The website will not be able to perform web analytics on visitors and traffic on the web, making it difficult for the web to be competitive.
- You will not be able to write on the blog, you will not be able to upload photos, post comments, rate or score content. The web will also not be able to know if you are a human or an automated application that publishes spam.
- Sectorized advertising cannot be displayed, which will reduce the website’s advertising revenue.
- All social networks use cookies, if you disable them, you will not be able to use any social network.
Can cookies be deleted?
Yes. Not only deleted, but also blocked, generally or particularly for a specific domain.
Below you can access the configuration of the most frequent web browsers to accept, install or disable cookies: