Javascript for the World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide, Fifth Edition

Chapter 12. JavaScript and Cookies

In Web terms, a cookie is a unique nugget of information that a Web server gives to your browser when the two first meet and which they then share with each return visit. The remote server saves its part of the cookie and the information it contains about you; your browser does the same, as a plain text file stored on your computer's hard disk.

As a JavaScript author, you can do many useful things with cookies. If your site requires registration, you can set cookies to store your readers' user names and passwords on their hard drives, so they don't need to enter them every time they visit. You can keep track of which parts of your site the user has visited, and count the number of visits from that user.

There are ...