Product Description
Cookies are controversial programming tools which help users keep track of where they are on a Web site - but they have also been rumoured to be the cause of virus mongering and security breeches. This text intends to show Web professionals how to make the most of Cookies.
From the Author
Cookies presents users and developers with key cookie info.Cookies gives users and developers a guide to the many mysteries of a simple but controversial tool, from how to create and use cookies appropriately to how to block and destroy them.
Introduced in Netscape Navigator version 1.1, cookies are small pieces of text that remain on the user's machine until they expire or are deleted. Cookies get passed back and forth with every web transaction (though only to the domain that originally set the cookie), allowing developers to track users over multiple page hits or even over years.
Cookies have earned a bad name for privacy invasion, given their ability to track users from visit to visit and (under very particular circumstances) from site to site. Most of this bad name is unwarranted, but Cookies gives users the information they need to turn off and destroy cookies where they feel it appropriate.
Cookies also gives developers examples of sites that maintain state over multiple visits, using JavaScript and VBScript in the browser, and Perl, Netscape Server-Side Java Script, Microsoft Active Server Pages, and Java servlets on the server. It also provides coverage of Microsoft Site Server and its tools for 'personalizing' sites and following usage patterns, as well as the latest update to the cookie standard.