Cookies are written to your hard drive by the browser application. Cookies are stored as text files and can be viewed with text editor. Cookies are bi-directional, meaning to say that cookies enter your computer from a website and information in the cookie is sent back to the website when remotely requested.
Cookies originate from websites on the Internet.
Some websites use cookies and some websites don't use cookies. Cookies may also originate from websites you've never even visited, these kind of cookies are sometimes called third party cookies and are used quite commonly in advertising. All cookies are not bad but some are. WebWasher distinguishes between good and bad cookies and filters out the bad ones. Cookies are also the subject of considerable debate.