What are cookies?

So cookies, delicious delicacy!! No wait! We gonna delve into cookies which are not so delicious but might give you some chills when your about to browse web next time. Web cookies or browser cookies, HTTP cookies, blah blah.. this are all terms which are used for the files which are saved in your Computer/Phone storage sent by a web server when you visit a certain web page.

History of cookies

The person responsible for cookies is Lou Montulli he developed one of the earliest browser named Lynx, later he joined Netscape. He named cookies after the term "Magic Cookies" might be inspired from Hansel and Gratel where they leave trail of cookie crumbs to find their way back to home from forest, anyways We can't totally rant about that it was an evil innovation or of that sorts. It was used to see whether users visited netscape website before. The cookies also presented a handy solution for virtual shopping carts, enabling e-commerce websites to remember what you were shopping for the last time you visited. Cookies didn't came to attention of general users until 1996 when media started to report about it's concerns regarding privacy issues. Companies like Facebook has 98% of its revenue coming from advertising, any guesses how?

Problems associated with it

Cookies were not created for the purpose of tracking someone. But over the time some entities whether it be big companies or individual hackers they started to exploit this feature. Cookies can provide user habits and behavior. Suppose you enter your age on a certain website for verification purpose, your interests for a course, Your political inclination through your searches and facebook feeds. this all are used to target curated ads towards you. This small data-points are so valuable for tech gaint companies like facebook. They built a multi-Billion dollar empire out of it . Some us of Know this but majority of us don't. Nations like EU has strict rules regarding this and lawsuits are been filled every couple of year regarding privacy issues. But countries like India does not have such systems and are thus vulnerable towards western Tech giants .

Solutions

One might say Web 3.0 can save us but again I'll be little conservative towards it.Blockchain is a great tech but any new tech comes with it's own drawback. If you are to concerned about your privacy you can use privacy modes like INCOGNITO or use a browser like BRAVE this web browser comes with its INCOGNITO mode on. You can also use search engines like DUCKDUCKGO this engine doesn’t log user information, store IP addresses, or use Internet cookies to identify or track you.

Thanks for reading.