Cookies in Web Development

Cookies are the small pieces of data that stored in user’s browser to remember information across sessions. They are normally used to keep users logged in, save preferences of sites, and track user behavior for analytics purposes. Unlike Local storage, Cookies are automatically sent to the server with each HTTP request, Which makes them very useful for server side session management.

Each cookie is a key value pair and can have additional attributes like expiration time,path, domain and security settings like Http only,secure,samesite. These settings help control where and how cookies are shared or accessed, enhancing security and user privacy.

Cookies are set either by the server via Http headers or by javascript using document,cookies. However managing cookies with JS can be messy since there’s no builtin API like local storage instead of that udevelopers use helper libraries for easier handling.

In conclusion cookies have a big role in web development. Specially for authentication and personalization. But Because they ‘re sending with each and every request, it’s important to keep them small and avoid storing sensitive information unless they’re properly secured.