The Evolution of the Cookie – Too much of a good thing?

Back when I was a kid, “Cookie Wars” meant choosing between Chips Ahoy, Oreo or Hydrox. Being from Baltimore, the clear winner was Berger’s – a local favorite.

Nowadays, we have a new cookie battleground, the web browser.

Wikipedia HTTP Cookie Definition

HTTP cookies, more commonly referred to as Web cookies, tracking cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a Web client (usually a browser) and then sent back unchanged by the client each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, session tracking (state maintenance), and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts.

The term "cookie" is derived from "magic cookie," a well-known concept in UNIX computing which inspired both the idea and the name of HTTP cookies. Tracking cookies track your web browsing habits. They can collect information about pages and advertisements you have seen or any other activity during browsing. Different websites can share tracking cookies, and each website with the same tracking cookie can read the information and write new information into it.

“C is for Cookie”
Everyone loves cookies, the more the merrier – So what’s the fight about?

Everybody is trying to use cookies for different purposes.   In addition to the cookies that are used by mainstream applications for authentication and personalization, cookies are now being set for mash-ups and additional services:  Google Analytics, survey products, chat,  A/B testing , etc.

So, when your application starts breaking in ways that you can’t understand impacting your site and your customer's experience, start counting your cookies. If you are over 15 cookies, start worrying.

Number and size limits of a cookie in Internet Explorer (Microsoft Help and Support)

If a Web application uses more than 19 custom cookies, ASP session state may be lost. Internet Explorer 4.0 and later versions allow a total of 20 cookies for each domain. Because ASPSessionID is a cookie, if you use 20 or more custom cookies, the browser is forced to discard the ASPSessionID cookie and lose the session.

Time for a Diet?

You are not alone, even the Cookie Monster is singing a new tune. In 2006, in response to concerns over childhood obesity even the Cookie Monster had to change his ways and discuss healthy habits, and in 2007 on a Martha Stewart show Cookies became a “sometimes food”.

-- Robert Wenig, Founder and CTO

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