© Lara604


Do you ever feel silly when someone starts discussing technology but you have no idea what the terms mean? Well, you've heard them before but you don't actually understand what they do. Not to worry, we are here to define a few techie terms so you can feel in the know at your next board meeting.

So what is a cookie? A cookie is a small file (a string of programming commands, really) that gets downloaded to your hard drive when you visit certain websites. This way when you return to the site the website will "recognize" you.

Note that cookies are not viruses. They are not bad by nature. They cannot hurt your hard drive or getprivate information about you out of your computer.

What cookies can do, however, is create information for the website you visit. They can save information like your log-in and password, they can track what you do on the site and keep count of purchases. Why would a website want this information? One reason is to provide fresh and relevant content to you every time you visit the site. The other reasons are mostly for convenience. And of course, for market research.

Can cookies be an invasion of privacy? Perhaps. But only if you provide personal information when registering on websites. If you provide a name, address and log-in, that's attached to your cookie. If you never provide personal data the website only recognizes that you've visited before.

On the other hand, cookies can make web browsing more efficient. All your preferences can be saved and you can move quickly through processes like online shopping, banking or ordering. And of course, if you're worried you can always turn cookies off on your browser (internet explorer or firefox).

If you want even more detailed information on cookies, you can read more here.

What other tech terms do you hear on a regular basis but have never known exactly what they mean?