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Ask HN: “We use cookies on this site to enhance your experience”

2 points by chrisbennet 12y ago

Do web sites really do this to "enhance your experience" or is it to enhance their experience in some way (better monetize/track/etc)? I'm not a web adept so I really don't know. This site for example: http://mosaicscience.com/story/how-bee-sting-saved-my-life-poison-medicine When I get a piece of snail mail that says "Important! Open Immediately" on the outside, I always think "Important to whom?" - it is rarely important me.

trebor 12y ago
The answer is "yes". The problem is that the web isn't stateful, as we term it, so each request you make is a totally blank slate—except for cookies. If they do any expensive computations and then cache them in the session (temporary data associated with your browser through a cookie) clearing your cookies will force them to do it again. In my experience it's better to trust 1st-party cookies that the site you're visiting directly may set, rather than trusting all 3rd party cookies set by folks like Google or Facebook. A simple example is that you indicated some preference. The only way for the browser and server to retain that preference is via a cookie.
- chrisbennet 12y ago
  Thanks!
luckyshot 12y ago
Good cookies are usually used to: - remember your language/country, - store a temporary authentication token (when logging into a website, checking the "Remember me" checkbox) so you don't need to re-login every day, - remember your name after you filled a commenting form on a blog post so the next time you comment it's already there - etc. Bad cookies are used to track you across different websites so they can target advertisements to what you have searched on Google or what pages you have visited. If you are concerned about your privacy you should use an extension such as Ghostery to block trackers and other bad cookies and then, as trebor says, accept all the other ones coming from 1st party sites since they usually want to help you
27182818284 12y ago
They're a dot UK company. This is a way of spinning the cookie compliance in a little bit more positive tone. http://kellywarnerlaw.com/new-uk-cookie-law-compliance/ http://kellywarnerlaw.com/new-uk-cookie-law-compliance/
mrcold 12y ago
It's an European law: http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm Websites that use cookies in any way must prompt the user about it.

2 points by chrisbennet 12y ago

trebor 12y ago

The answer is "yes". The problem is that the web isn't stateful, as we term it, so each request you make is a totally blank slate—except for cookies. If they do any expensive computations and then cache them in the session (temporary data associated with your browser through a cookie) clearing your cookies will force them to do it again. In my experience it's better to trust 1st-party cookies that the site you're visiting directly may set, rather than trusting all 3rd party cookies set by folks like Google or Facebook. A simple example is that you indicated some preference. The only way for the browser and server to retain that preference is via a cookie.

chrisbennet 12y ago
Thanks!

luckyshot 12y ago

Good cookies are usually used to: - remember your language/country, - store a temporary authentication token (when logging into a website, checking the "Remember me" checkbox) so you don't need to re-login every day, - remember your name after you filled a commenting form on a blog post so the next time you comment it's already there - etc. Bad cookies are used to track you across different websites so they can target advertisements to what you have searched on Google or what pages you have visited. If you are concerned about your privacy you should use an extension such as Ghostery to block trackers and other bad cookies and then, as trebor says, accept all the other ones coming from 1st party sites since they usually want to help you

27182818284 12y ago

They're a dot UK company. This is a way of spinning the cookie compliance in a little bit more positive tone. http://kellywarnerlaw.com/new-uk-cookie-law-compliance/ http://kellywarnerlaw.com/new-uk-cookie-law-compliance/

mrcold 12y ago

It's an European law: http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm Websites that use cookies in any way must prompt the user about it.