Advantages and Disadvantages of Cookies

by PRAKASH UPRETI SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER/ CONTENT

Cookies enable you to store the session information on the client side which has the following advantages,

You can manually encrypt & decrypt the cookies, but it requires extra coding, You can affect the application performance because of the time that is required for encryption & decryption.

• Persistence: One of the most powerful aspects of cookies is their persistence. When a cookie is set on the client’s browser, it can persist for days, months or even years. This makes it easy to save user preferences and visit information and to keep this information available every time the user returns to your site. Moreover, as cookies are stored on the client’s hard disk so if the server crashes they are still available.

• Transparent: Cookies work transparently without the user being aware that information needs to be stored.

• They lighten the load on the server’s memory.

Disadvantages of Cookies

The following are the disadvantages of cookies :

• Sometimes clients disable cookies on their browsers in response to security or privacy worries which will cause a problem for web applications that require them.

• An individual cookie can contain a very limited amount of information (not more than 4 kb).

• Cookies are limited to simple string information. They cannot store complex information.

• Cookies are easily accessible and readable if the user finds and reopens.

• Most browsers restrict the number of cookies that can be set by a single domain to not more than20 cookies (except Internet Explorer). If you attempt to set more than 20 cookies, the oldest cookies are automatically deleted.

is a message that the web server pass to your web browser when you visit the internet sites, Your browser stores the message in a small file When you request another page from the server, your browser sends the cookie back to the server.

The cookie is a small file stored on the user’s computer, It is used by the websites to track the visitors to keep the user information such as the username, interests, Password Remember Option, etc, If any web application use cookies, The server send cookies & client browser will store it.

The cookies are domain specific , The domain cannot read or write to the cookie created by another domain , It is done by the browser for security purpose , The cookies are browser specific , Each browser stores the cookies in a different location, The cookies created in one browser ( e.g in Google Chrome ) will not be accessed by another browser ( Internet Explorer/Firefox ).

The cookies can not store complex information as they are limited to simple string information, Many limitations exist on the size of the cookie text, The individual cookie can contain a very limited amount of information ( not more than 4 kb ).

You can delete the cookies, You can edit the cookies, So, your code should anticipate that possibility, Certain browsers can limit the cookies number stored by each domain ( 20 cookies per site), If the cookies limit is exceeded, the new cookies will replace the old cookies.