All About Cookies

Cookies are sweet and delicious, but make you fat...

Seriously though, your computer eats cookies too when you surf the web. And it is EU legislation that a web site must inform you if it is feeding them to your computer.

There are two types of people: those that know what cookies are and those that don't. Those that do know they aren't anything to worry about and get fed up of having to click on "accept" buttons all the time. Those that don't see these notices and panic, thinking that their computer is about to be possessed by evil aliens. If you're the former then you won't even be reading this because you'll have just clicked "accept" and got on with it. If you're the latter then you won't be reading this because you're hiding behind the sofa or something. Come back! Please. Let me explain all...

Computers are quite forgetful, just like me, when it comes to web sites. This can be pretty tiresome. So cookies were dreamt up as a kind of post-it note for your computer. You never see them, but it does. If you visit a web site you have been to before your computer can check these post-it notes, or 'cookies', to see if there is anything it needs to remember, like settings.

On All About Katie I use a cookie for one thing and one thing only*: the darkness setting. Whether you prefer to see the site in light mode, as you first find it, or the alternative dark theme you can choose with the buttons on the left, the setting is stored in a cookie on your computer. If this wasn't done, every time you visited the site you would be greeted with the light theme and you'd have to switch back to dark yourself. I know that may not sound a big deal, but it can be really irritating for those that love the darkness.

So that's it! That's all the fuss is about. Why the EU feel this information should be forced upon you only they know. But now you now about cookies. Whenever you see a little message asking you to accept cookies just click the button and make it go away. Nothing bad will happen. It doesn't mean your computer is gathering all kinds of personal information about you and secretly sending it to bad people. It just means it wants to leave itself a post-it note to remember you like this site in dark mode. So why not grab a cookie or two and get back to the Blog?

* Actually, I now use a second one to remember that you've accepted the use of cookies!