What are cookies?

Mmmm…cookies.  Not the delicious chocolate chip ones above, but computer cookies.  Chances are, you’ve heard about them, probably been advised to delete them once or twice, and wondered just what the heck they were. 

Imagine you’re researching your family history, and each time you visit a library, you leave a note with the librarian about which books you looked at and what information you found. The next time you visit, the librarian hands you a folder with all your previous notes, making it easier for you to pick up where you left off.

In the digital world, computer cookies work in a similar way. When you visit a website, a small file called a cookie is stored on your computer. This file remembers what you looked at, your login details and preferences, so the next time you visit, the website can provide a more personalized experience. It’s like having your own digital librarian who keeps track of your research and makes your online experience smoother.  Some helpful things that cookies might do that you may not realize:

• Keep you logged into websites so you don’t have to remember your password each time.
• Remember what searches you’ve done in the past, or what languages you’ve worked with previously.
• Kept track of what items you’ve looked at so you can find them easily again. (primarily retail sites)

Cookies can make your web browsing more convenient by remembering your settings and preferences. However, just like you wouldn’t want your personal notes shared without your permission, it’s important to know some other things cookies do that may not be what you intended:

• Share what you’ve browsed with other sites.  Have you ever looked at an item on a retail site, and then seen advertisements for the same product on Facebook or Twitter/X?  That’s because the websites share their cookies with each other.
• Counted how many times you’ve been to a site.  This may be fine for some sites, but in other places you may want your browsing to be private.

Types of Cookies

Cookie files have four main types:

Functional cookies, sometimes called “Strictly Necessary Cookies” have notes on the type of computer you’re using, and how to make sure the site works on your computer type. 

Performance cookies: These are the ones that do things like count how many times you and others visit the website, what specific pages you visit most often, and how long it takes pages to load.

Customization cookies – they can save things like your login information, payment information, how you’ve used the site in the past, and try to give you more of what you’ve used before.

Advertising or Targeting cookies – these are the cookies that sites tend to share (or sell) to other companies.  They keep track of what you’re looking at and how likely you are to buy it. 

Modifying or Deleting Cookies

The good news is that there are ways to manage most of your cookies to ensure your information is kept private and secure.  You can do this in two ways:

• Stop the site from sending you the cookie in the first place.
• Delete the cookies once they are on your computer. 

To stop sites from sending you cookies

You have to do this on the website itself.  You may have to do a little digging to find the part of the site where you can change your cookies.  Usually if you look at the bottom of a site they’ll be a link to “Privacy Policy”, “Site Permissions” or if you’re lucky, “Cookie Policy”.  Within that you’ll find a form with On/Off buttons or checkboxes to set the cookies you’re willing to have vs those you don’t.   Don’t forget to save your changes!

An important note – this will only affect new cookies that the site may try to send in the future.  Once the cookies are on your device, you have to use the method below. 

Delete cookies on your computer

Once cookies are on your computer you can delete them entirely.  You won’t have the ability to choose what types of cookies to delete – either none go or they all go.  Each browser is slightly different, but in general you’ll want to go to your settings and look for something that says Privacy, Cookies, or “Site Permissions”.  You should have an option there to delete cookies.