What is a cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any web page. The usefulness of a cookie is that the web is able to remember your visit when you return to surf this page. Although many people do not know, the cookies have been in use for 20 years, when the first browsers for the World Wide Web appeared.
What is NOT a cookie?
It is not a virus or a Trojan, not a worm, or spam, or spyware, or open pop-up windows.
What information stores a cookie?
Cookies do not usually store sensitive information about you, such as credit card or bank account information, photographs, your ID or personal information, etc. The data stored are technical, personal preferences, content personalization, etc.
The web server does not associate you as a person, but your web browser. In fact, if you regularly browse with Internet Explorer and try to browse the same web with Firefox or Chrome you will see that the web does not realize that you are the same person because you are actually associating the browser, not the person.
What kind of cookies are there?
- Technical Cookies: These are the most basic and they allow, among other things, to know if it is a human or an automated application who is navigating, when it is an anonymous user or one registered who is navigating. Those are basic tasks for running any dynamic web.
- Cookies for analysis: They collect information on the type of navigation that you are performing, the sections most used, consulted products, time period of use, language, etc.
- Advertising Cookies: They display advertising based on your navigation, your country of origin, language, etc.
What are own cookies andthird party cookies?
Own cookies are those generated by the page you are visiting and third party cookies are those generated by internal or external providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What happens if I disable cookies?
To understand the consequences of disabling cookies, next we shows some examples:
- You can not share content of this site on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
- The web site will not adapt content to your personal preferences, as often happens in online stores.
- You can not access the personal area of the website, such as My Account, or My Profile or My orders.
- Online Stores: It will be impossible to make purchases online, they will be telephone calling or visiting the physical store.
- It will not be possible to customize your geographic preferences as time zone, currency or language.
- The website can not perform web analytics about visitors and web traffic, making it difficult to be competitive anywhere.
- You can not write on the blog, you can not upload photos, post comments, evaluate or rate content. The web may not know whether you are a human or an automated application that publishes spam.
- No sectorized advertising can be shown, which will reduce the web advertising revenue.
- All social networks use cookies, if disabled you can not use any social network.
Can I delete cookies?
Yes. Not only eliminate, also block, general or particular to a specific domain.
To remove cookies from a website you should go to your browser settings and there you can find the associated domain in question and proceed to its elimination.
Configuring cookies for most popular browsers
Next we show you how to accede to a particular cookie of the Chrome browser ( These steps may vary depending on the browser version):
- Go to Settings or Preferences via the File menu or by clicking the customization icon that appears above right.
- You will see different sections, click the “Show Advanced Options” option.
- Go to Privacy, Content settings.
- Select All cookies and site data.
- A list will appear with all cookies ordered by domain. To make it easier to find some particular cookies, from a particular domain, enter partially or totally the address in the search field cookies.
- A fter making this filter will be displayed one or several lines with the requested web cookies. Now you just have to select it and pressX to proceed to their elimination
To access the cookie settings in Internet Explorer follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Go to Tools, Internet Options
- Click on Privacy.
- Move the slider to adjust the level of privacy you want.
To access the configuration cookies Browser Firefox follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Go to Options or Preferences for your operating system.
- Click on Privacy.
- In History, choose “Use custom settings for history”.
- You will now see the “Accept Cookies” option and can turn it on or off according to your preferences.
To access the cookie settings Safari browser for OSX follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Go to Preferences, then Privacy.
- Here you will see the option “Block cookies” to fit the type of blocking you want to perform.
To access the cookie settings Safari browser for iOS follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Go to Settings, then Safari.
- Go to Privacy and Security, you will see the option “Block cookies” to fit the type of blocking you want to perform.
To access the configuration cookies browser for devices Android follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Run the browser and press the Menu key, then Settings.
- Go to Security and Privacy, see the Accept Cookies option to check or uncheck the box.
To access the configuration cookies browser for devices Windows Phone follow these steps (may vary depending on the browser version):
- Open Internet Explorer, then More, then Settings
- You can now enable or disable the Allow cookies.
