path: root/doc/kcontrol/cookies/index.docbook

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<articleinfo>

<authorgroup>
<author>&Krishna.Tateneni; &Krishna.Tateneni.mail;</author>
<author>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>

<date>2003-10-12</date>
<releaseinfo>3.2</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>cookie</keyword>
</keywordset>

</articleinfo>

<sect1 id="cookie">
<title>Cookies</title>

<para>Cookies are a mechanism used by web sites to store and retrieve
information using your browser.  For example, a web site may allow you
to customize the content and layout of the pages you see, so that your
choices are persistent across different visits to that web site.</para>

<para>The web site is able to remember your preferences by storing a
cookie on your computer. Then, on future visits, the web site retrieves
the information stored in the cookie to format the content of the site
according to your previously specified preferences.</para>

<para>Thus, cookies play a very useful role in web browsing.
Unfortunately, web sites often store and retrieve information in cookies
without your explicit knowledge or consent. Some of this information may
be quite useful to the web site owners, for example, by allowing them to
collect summary statistics on the number of visits different areas of
the web sites get, or to customize banner advertising.</para>

<para>The cookies module of the &kcontrol; allows you to set policies
for the use of cookies when you are browsing the web with the
&konqueror; web browser. </para>

<warning><para>Note that the policies that you set using this control
module will <emphasis>not</emphasis> apply to other web browsers such
as &Netscape;.</para></warning>

<sect2 id="cookie-policy">

<title>Policy</title>

<para>Using the <guilabel>Policy</guilabel> tab, you can configure the
&kde; applications that will handle cookies. You can do this by specifying a
general cookie policy as well as special cookie policies for certain
domains or hosts.</para>

<para>The top of the policy tab has a checkbox labeled <guilabel>Enable
cookies</guilabel>. If you leave this unchecked, cookies will be
completely disabled. However, this may make browsing rather
inconvenient, especially as some web sites require the use of browsers
with cookies enabled.</para>

<para>You will probably want to enable cookies and then set
specific policies on how you want them to be handled.</para>

<para>The first group of options create settings that apply to all cookies.</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Only accept cookies from originating server</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Some pages try to set cookies from servers other than the one
you are seeing the <acronym>HTML</acronym> page from.  For example,
they show you advertisements, and the advertisements are from another
computer, often one that belongs to a large advertising group.  These
advertisements may try to set a cookie which would allow them to
track the pages you view across multiple web sites.</para>
<para>Enabling this option will mean only cookies that come from the
same web server as you are explicitly connecting to will be
accepted.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Automatically accept session cookies</guilabel></term>
<listitem>

<para>An increasingly common use for cookies is not to track your
movements across many visits to a web site, but to just follow what you
do during one single visit.  Session cookies are saved as long as you
are looking at the site, and deleted when you leave it.</para>

<para>Web sites can use this information for various things, most
commonly it is a convenience so that you do not have to keep logging in
to view pages.  For example, on a webmail site, without some kind of
session <acronym>ID</acronym>, you would have to give your password
again for each email you want to read.  There are other ways to
achieve this, but cookies are simple and very common.</para>

<para>Enabling this option means that session cookies are always
accepted, even if you don't accept any other kind, and even if you
choose to reject cookies from a particular site, session cookies from
that site will be accepted.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Treat all cookies as session cookies</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If this option is enabled, all cookies are treated as session
cookies.  That is, they are not kept when you leave the
web site.</para>
<note>
<para>The definition of <quote>leave the web site</quote> is vague.
Some cookies may hang around for a little while after you are no
longer viewing any pages on a particular web site.  This is
normal.</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>The section for <guilabel>Default Policy</guilabel> sets some
further options that are mutually exclusive &mdash; you can choose only one
of these options as the default, but you are free to set a different
option for any specific web server.</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Ask for confirmation</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If this option is selected, you will be asked for confirmation
every time a cookie is stored or retrieved. You can selectively accept
or reject each cookie. The confirmation dialog will also allow you to
set a domain specific policy, if you do not want to confirm each
cookie for that domain.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Accept all cookies</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If this option is selected, all cookies will be accepted without
asking for confirmation.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Reject all cookies</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If this option is selected, all cookies will be rejected without
asking for confirmation.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>In addition to the default policy for handling of cookies, which you can
set by selecting one of the three options described above, you can also set
policies for specific host domains using the controls in the <guilabel>Domain
Specific</guilabel> group.</para>

<para>The Ask, Accept, or Reject policy can be applied to a specific
domain by clicking on the <guibutton>New...</guibutton> button, which
brings up a dialog. In this dialog, you can type the name of the
domain (with a leading dot), then select the policy you want to apply
to this domain. Note that entries may also get added while you are
browsing, if the default policy is to ask for confirmation, and you
choose a general policy for a specific host (for example, by selecting
<guilabel>Reject all cookies from this domain</guilabel> when asked to
confirm a cookie).</para>

<para>You can also select a specific host domain from the list and click the
<guibutton>Change</guibutton> button to choose a different policy for that
domain than the one shown in the list.</para>

<para>To delete a domain specific policy, choose a domain from the list, and
then click the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button. The default policy will
apply to domains which have been deleted from the list.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="cookie-management">
<title>Management</title>

<para>In the <guilabel>Management</guilabel> tab you can browse and selectively
delete cookies that have been set in the past.</para>

<para>In the upper part of this dialog, you can see a list of domains displayed
as a tree. Click on the little <guiicon>+</guiicon> next to a domain to see all
cookies that have been set for this particular target domain. If you select one
of these cookies, you will notice that its contents will show up in the frame
<guilabel>Cookie Details</guilabel> below.</para>

<para>By clicking the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button you can now delete the selected
cookie. Click <guibutton>Delete All</guibutton> to delete all cookies stored.</para>

<para>Choose <guibutton>Reload List</guibutton> to reload the list
from your hard disk. You might want to do this if you have had the
module open and are testing web sites, or have made many changes in the
module itself.</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</article>