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Posted By: ryck Bookmarks & Cookies - is there a link? - 09/07/17 01:24 PM
Is it possible that creating a bookmark might also establish a link that tells a site where to send a persistent cookie? Here's the background.......

For a very long time I have had a persistent cookie pop up every time I opened Safari. Although I would immediately delete it using Cookie Software, the cookie would appear again within a minute or so. Usually a couple of deletions would stop the attempts until the next Safari launch.

Three days ago I was cleaning up my bookmark files and found that I had a bookmark to the site that's been sending the persistent cookie. I deleted the bookmark and, since then, the persistent cookie has not reappeared.

Is this coincidence or is it possible that the bookmark established a link telling the site where to send cookies?
Posted By: Virtual1 Re: Bookmarks & Cookies - is there a link? - 09/07/17 05:18 PM
Nothing "sends" cookies to your browser. When you visit a web site, it can ask your browser to save one or more cookies, and can request access to information stored in cookies.

The initial purpose of these files was just to store information that could be accessed later to customize the appearance. Think like viewing your webmail online and opening the URL and you see your inbox, with all the subfolders opened up instead of collapsed, or any other site preferences like the checkbox for "save a copy of sent messages in my Sent Items folder".

Since then they've evolved quite a bit, they're used for example to save shopping carts. If you had logged into the site (like eBay) then eBay could store the cart on its end, but if you weren't logged in, you can STILL load up your cart, quit and relaunch the browser, return back to eBay, and your cart will still be there. That's all stored in cookies on your computer.

Adding a bookmark is strictly a web browser function, and I don't know of any web page features that can trigger any browser to create a bookmark. So when you add a bookmark, it should be 100% a browser function and no code or html on the page would have any way of getting activated to work with cookies.

Likewise, any other running web page code (specifically javascript or flash) should be automatically killed by the browser when the page/tab that created it is closed. So once you have all your tabs/pages closed, there shouldn't be anything running anywhere that could be for example, creating a cookie in the background every few minutes.
Posted By: ryck Re: Bookmarks & Cookies - is there a link? - 09/07/17 05:52 PM
Originally Posted By: Virtual1
Nothing "sends" cookies to your browser. When you visit a web site, it can ask your browser to save one or more cookies, and can request access to information stored in cookies.

I understand how cookies work when I visit a website. However these "persistent cookies" appeared without visiting the website. As soon as I would open Safari, the cookie (which also included tracking) would appear in the list on the Cookie Software. I can't begin to recall when I was last at the website and yet it was popping in cookies with every opening of Safari.

The persistent cookies only stopped after I removed the bookmark, which is why I wondered about it. How else did the website know that I had opened Safari?
Posted By: Virtual1 Re: Bookmarks & Cookies - is there a link? - 09/08/17 04:39 PM
clicking the bookmark might get you some cookies, but merely having the bookmark in your browser should NOT. I have no explanation for how you are getting cookies while not visiting a site.

You can get them by visiting a different website though. But cookies are tied to the URL in the addresser of the window/tab, and only a website with that prefix can create or read cookies in that jar. So without that website open in something, it ought to be impossible.
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