How to activate cookies to optimize your impact when consuming on social networks

In the world of computing, cookies (cookies, in English) are small fragments of text that websites send to the browser, whether Chrome, Edge or Mozilla, to allow them to obtain information about the visit carried out.

Among the main functions of cookies, according to the Argentine government, is to remember accesses so that sites can identify the visitor’s device and offer a more dynamic browsing experience.

But there are some cookies that exert a more invasive actionbecause they can be used to know the visitor’s browsing habits and also to identify them as a user based on the pages they visit. This function is the most controversial since it can affect privacy.

While these “cookies” are safe, their main risk lies in their ability to track history navigation of a user. Therefore, in Europe, for example, the Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) offers the possibility of activate them, deactivate them and even customize them.

The Argentine government site details the different types of cookies. The temporary They remain in the browser until the person leaves the site. The permanentinstead, they remain on the PC’s hard drive for the site to run again and to identify the visitor if they return to it.

Cookies can also be our own, that is, those used by the website, or third-party cookies, generated by services or providers external to that site. Preference cookies, meanwhile, store settings on previously accessed websites, to remember, for example, the browser or language used.

The truth is that the fewer cookies the user allows, the more privacy they will obtain when browsing the Internet, although their experience will be more depersonalized. In this sense, the only reason to accept them is that they allow access a site faster.

In Europafrom the application of GDPRevery time you enter a website a sign appears asking if you want accept or reject all cookies, or configure them. It also explains what type of cookies the site is using.

However, as the news site explains The Spanish“in a metaphorical sense, activating your cookies means shaping the reality you aspire to in your social networks and the content you consume.” To do this, he adds, you have to “manipulate the network so that it shows you what you consider enriching for you.”

The idea is to make a more productive and healthy use of cookies and algorithms, “instead of falling into the addictions caused by empty and fast content, in which we sometimes, without realizing it, immerse ourselves,” according to the site.

He adds that instead of consumption on social networks only being memes and “junk content,” it could become a source of knowledge. And, to do this, you have to know what type of content is the best.

If you can do so, you must pay close attention to what type of cookies is activated, delete them at the end of the navigation and, in some way, “train” the algorithm so that it only “recommends” what is really interesting.