Jean Armour Polly . All rights reserved. A cookie is a little file of settings a host computer tries to send you, which will stay resident on your computer. You can set your browser to ask you before you accept a cookie. For example, at an airline reservation site, cookies remember that you like aisle seats and Asian vegetarian meals.
Cookies can be annoying, but harmless.
Cookies can also be bad if they report on your personal Web activities to others and this fact isn't disclosed to you. For example, this information can include which ads you have clicked on, which pages you have seen, and what information you have requested. Browser software allows you to set a few security features, and one of them involves cookies. This is all explained at the Cookie Central site.