¿Qué es una cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file stored on your browser when you visit almost any website. Cookies are used so that the website can remember your visit the next time that you browse that page. Although many people are unaware of this, cookies have been in use for 20 years, ever since the first World Wide Web browsers came into existence.
What A Cookie Is Not
A cookie is not a virus, a Trojan, a worm, spam, spyware or a pop-up window.
What Type Of Information Does A Cookie Store?
Cookies do not generally store sensitive information about you, such as credit cards or bank details, photos, your ID or personal information, etc. The data stored are of a technical nature, personal preferences, content personalisation, etc.
The web server does not identify you as a person, but your web browser. In fact, if you regularly browse using Internet Explorer and then try browsing the same website with Firefox or Chrome, you will be able to note that the website does not realize that you are the same person because it is actually identifying the browser, not the person.
What Type Of Cookies Are There?
- Technical cookies: These are the simplest and among other things, make it possible to know whether a human being or an automated application is browsing, or whether it’s an anonymous or a registered user browsing, which are basic to the operation of any dynamic website.
- Analytics cookies: These collect information on the kind of browsing you’re doing, the sections you use the most, the products browsed, your time zone, language, etc.
- Advertising cookies: These show advertising based on your browsing habits, the country you live in, your language, etc.
What Are Own And Third-Party Cookies?
Own cookies are those generated by the website you’re visiting, whereas third-party cookies are generated by outside services or providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What Happens If I Disable Cookies?
Here are a few examples, of what can happen when you disable cookies:
- You won’t be able to share content from that website on Facebook, Twitter or other social media.
- The website will be unable to adapt the contents to your personal preferences, as tends to happen on online shops.
- You won’t be able to access the personal area of that website, such as My account, My profile or My orders.
- Online shops: You won’t be able to do online shopping; you’ll either have to shop by phone or visit the actual shop, if one exists.
- It won’t be possible to customise your geographical preferences such as your time zone, currency and language.
- The website will be unable to perform website analytics on visitors and traffic, which will make it harder for the website to be competitive.
- You won’t be able to write on the blog, upload photos, post comments, and assess or rate content. Neither will the website be able to determine whether you’re a person or an automated application that posts spam.
- It will not be possible to display advertising by sector, thereby reducing the website advertising revenue.
- All social media channels use cookies. If these are disabled, then you will be unable to use the social media networks.
Can cookies be deleted?
Yes. Not just deleted, but also blocked, either completely or only those for a specific domain.
To delete cookies from a website, go to your browser settings, where you can search for cookies associated with a given domain and delete them.
Cookies settings for the most popular browsers
We’ll now show you how to access a given cookie on the Chrome web browser. Please note that these steps may vary depending on what version of Chrome you’re using:
- Go to Settings or Preferences either through the File menu or by clicking on the Customize icon that appears upper right-hand corner.
- You will see different sections, click on the option Show advanced options.
- Scroll down to the Privacy section, click on Content Settings.
- Select See all cookies and site data.
- A list will appear with all the cookies ordered by domain. To make it easier to find the cookies of a given domain, partially or completely enter the address in the Search cookies field.
- After this filter has been made, one or more lines of cookies from the requested website will be displayed on the screen. Simply select them and press X to delete.
To access the cookies setting on Internet Explorer, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your version of Internet Explorer):
- Go to Tools, Internet Options.
- Click the Privacy tab.
- Click the Privacy tab. Move the slider to the desired privacy level.
To access the cookies setting on the Firefox browser, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your version of the browser):
- Go to Options or Preferences, depending on your operating system.
- Click the Privacy tab.
- Under “History” select “Use custom settings for history“
- You will then see the option to Accept cookies, which you can enable or disable as you choose.
To access the cookies settings on the Safari browser for OS X, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your version of Safari):
- Go to Preferences, then click on the Privacy tab.
- In this section you will see the Block cookies option, adjust the type of blocking as desired.
To access the cookies settings on the Safari browser for OS X, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your version of Safari):
- Go to Settings, then Safari.
- Go to Privacy and Security, In this section you will see the Block cookies option, adjust the type of blocking as desired.
To access the cookies settings for Android devices, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your version of the browser):
- Run the browser and press the Menu key, then Settings.
- Go to Privacy and Security. In this section you will see the Accept cookies option, which you can check or uncheck.
To access the cookies settings on the Windows Phone devices browser, follow these steps (these may vary depending on your browser version):
- Open Internet Explorer, then More, then Settings.
- Now you can check or uncheck the Allow cookies box as desired.