Cookies & Advertisements

 So, you like cookies, huh?

This month, i've decided to go 'back to basics' and discuss internet advertisements. There are a massive amount of users using browser extensions to block Ads - but do most users know exactly what they're blocking? For this post, I used IE 11 and Firefox 30.0 which were the latest at the time of writing.

For those of you who remember using dial-up, you'll be familiar with ads. Banner ads used to be extremely popular - and still are to a degree. Adverts generate money - this is the most important thing to remember. When you click on an advert - someone just got paid; more clicks = more money. I remember vividly trying to navigate around websites without clicking on ads back in the 90's, it was almost impossible.

Websites would 'trick' users by having ads that seemed like part of the website, when in actual fact, they were a 3rd party advert that would send you to an obscure website you'd never heard of. These websites would leave what's known as a 'cookie' on your computer - a cookie is a text file which stores personal information and user preferences which is used to identify a user when browsing a website.

There are 'good' cookies and there are 'bad' cookies. The bad cookies sell your personal information such as your email address to 3rd party companies. Ever wondered why you get spam emails and they magically know your name? Cookies.

So, what else can cookies do? Well, if you've ever browsed on Amazon for a PS3 console, then gone to another website and got an advert for a PS3 on Amazon - again - cookies are tracking your activity. Therefore, it's important to know about the different kinds of cookies:

• Persistent cookies - remain after your browser has closed (and can also be re-used)
• Temporary cookies - deleted when your browser closes
• First-party & Third-party cookies - first party cookies originate from the website you're currently looking at in your browser. Third party cookies originate from a different website than currently have open but are related to the current website you're viewing. (The Amazon example above is an example of this).

Many sites uses adverts from third-party sites and those sites track your web activity for the sole purpose of advertising. Most browsers allow you to configure them and block cookies that don't ask permission to gather your personal information. Lesson here is: check your settings. Check what you're allowing cookies to do on your computer.

Back to advertising. Is there anything more annoying than Google Ads? Google scans your emails and picks up on keywords, which then allows them to bring you tailored ads which are known as 'targeted' adverts. Recently, a friend and I were emailing back and forth about VPS. Low an behold, look at the ad in my gmail (IE 11 without ad blocking software):

 

Crafty, huh? There are debates over this sort of thing - and people have different opinions. Personally - I don't like the fact that software is scanning my emails for keywords and who knows what else it's doing - we simply don't know. I was browsing a popular news website, and got the following ad along the right hand side of the page (again, IE 11 with no ad blocker):

 

Installing the ever-popular 'Adblock' extension to your browser will stop this kind of thing. Here is a screenshot taken from Firefox 30.0 with Adblock installed:

 The screenshot above shows that Google's ad has been removed. And below, you'll see the ad was removed from the news website, hence the blank space in the screenshot. Although these ads were 'legitimate' and not malware, Adblock can help to minimize the risk that ads present. Not all ads are genuine, in fact, there's an increasing number of ads out there that aim to not only track you, but get you to inadvertently install malware or viruses on your machine. So there you have it: cookies & advertisements - not as tasty as they sound! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself...)