A cookie is a very small text (.txt) file that gets put on your hard drive by some Web pages to be retrieved by subsequent Web pages.

Cookies are used by many Web page designers as a convenient means of letting one Web page retrieve specific information about what you, the user, did on a previous Web page. Sometimes cookies are used to communicate password and login information from page to page, to save preferences, or to fill a "shopping basket", such that one page can collect information about what you decided to buy on previous pages.

Can cookies compromise your privacy?

Not really. Although some people don't like having anything added to their hard drive without their consent, and others worry about invasion of privacy, cookies are extremely limited in what they can do. Cookies can not scan your hard drive for information. Cookies are just simple text that sits on your hard drive. Any personal information stored in a cookie is limited to whatever you volunteer, such as when you fill out a form on a Web page.

The accessibility of information in your cookie.txt file is very limited as well. If a Web page at some Web site saves some text to the cookie.txt file on your hard drive, another Web page at another Web site can not access it. Specific text in your cookie.txt file can only be accessed by the Web site pages that created it. Moreover, since cookies are nothing more than a bit of text, they certainly can not spread viruses.

If you'd like to be warned before a cookie is placed on your hard drive, you can configure Netscape Communicator to do so. Click the Edit menu, then click Preferences.... Click to highlight Advanced, then click the box next to Warn me before accepting a cookie.

If you'd like to find out more about cookies, see Netscape's Cookies and Privacy FAQ.