runtime/doc/kcontrol/cookies/index.docbook

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   8 <article lang="&language;">
   9 <articleinfo>
  10
  11 <authorgroup>
  12 <author>&Krishna.Tateneni; &Krishna.Tateneni.mail;</author>
  13 <author>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
  14 <!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
  15 </authorgroup>
  16
  17 <date>2003-10-12</date>
  18 <releaseinfo>3.2</releaseinfo>
  19
  20 <keywordset>
  21 <keyword>KDE</keyword>
  22 <keyword>KControl</keyword>
  23 <keyword>cookie</keyword>
  24 </keywordset>
  25
  26 </articleinfo>
  27
  28 <sect1 id="cookie">
  29 <title>Cookies</title>
  30
  31 <para>Cookies are a mechanism used by web sites to store and retrieve
  32 information using your browser.  For example, a web site may allow you
  33 to customize the content and layout of the pages you see, so that your
  34 choices are persistent across different visits to that web site.</para>
  35
  36 <para>The web site is able to remember your preferences by storing a
  37 cookie on your computer. Then, on future visits, the web site retrieves
  38 the information stored in the cookie to format the content of the site
  39 according to your previously specified preferences.</para>
  40
  41 <para>Thus, cookies play a very useful role in web browsing.
  42 Unfortunately, web sites often store and retrieve information in cookies
  43 without your explicit knowledge or consent. Some of this information may
  44 be quite useful to the web site owners, for example, by allowing them to
  45 collect summary statistics on the number of visits different areas of
  46 the web sites get, or to customize banner advertising.</para>
  47
  48 <para>The cookies module of the &kcontrol; allows you to set policies
  49 for the use of cookies when you are browsing the web with the
  50 &konqueror; web browser. </para>
  51
  52 <warning><para>Note that the policies that you set using this control
  53 module will <emphasis>not</emphasis> apply to other web browsers such
  54 as &Netscape;.</para></warning>
  55
  56 <sect2 id="cookie-policy">
  57
  58 <title>Policy</title>
  59
  60 <para>Using the <guilabel>Policy</guilabel> tab, you can configure the
  61 &kde; applications that will handle cookies. You can do this by specifying a
  62 general cookie policy as well as special cookie policies for certain
  63 domains or hosts.</para>
  64
  65 <para>The top of the policy tab has a checkbox labeled <guilabel>Enable
  66 cookies</guilabel>. If you leave this unchecked, cookies will be
  67 completely disabled. However, this may make browsing rather
  68 inconvenient, especially as some web sites require the use of browsers
  69 with cookies enabled.</para>
  70
  71 <para>You will probably want to enable cookies and then set
  72 specific policies on how you want them to be handled.</para>
  73
  74 <para>The first group of options create settings that apply to all cookies.</para>
  75
  76 <variablelist>
  77 <varlistentry>
  78 <term><guilabel>Only accept cookies from originating server</guilabel></term>
  79 <listitem>
  80 <para>Some pages try to set cookies from servers other than the one
  81 you are seeing the <acronym>HTML</acronym> page from.  For example,
  82 they show you advertisements, and the advertisements are from another
  83 computer, often one that belongs to a large advertising group.  These
  84 advertisements may try to set a cookie which would allow them to
  85 track the pages you view across multiple web sites.</para>
  86 <para>Enabling this option will mean only cookies that come from the
  87 same web server as you are explicitly connecting to will be
  88 accepted.</para>
  89 </listitem>
  90 </varlistentry>
  91 <varlistentry>
  92 <term><guilabel>Automatically accept session cookies</guilabel></term>
  93 <listitem>
  94
  95 <para>An increasingly common use for cookies is not to track your
  96 movements across many visits to a web site, but to just follow what you
  97 do during one single visit.  Session cookies are saved as long as you
  98 are looking at the site, and deleted when you leave it.</para>
  99
 100 <para>Web sites can use this information for various things, most
 101 commonly it is a convenience so that you do not have to keep logging in
 102 to view pages.  For example, on a webmail site, without some kind of
 103 session <acronym>ID</acronym>, you would have to give your password
 104 again for each email you want to read.  There are other ways to
 105 achieve this, but cookies are simple and very common.</para>
 106
 107 <para>Enabling this option means that session cookies are always
 108 accepted, even if you don't accept any other kind, and even if you
 109 choose to reject cookies from a particular site, session cookies from
 110 that site will be accepted.</para>
 111 </listitem>
 112 </varlistentry>
 113
 114 <varlistentry>
 115 <term><guilabel>Treat all cookies as session cookies</guilabel></term>
 116 <listitem>
 117 <para>If this option is enabled, all cookies are treated as session
 118 cookies.  That is, they are not kept when you leave the
 119 web site.</para>
 120 <note>
 121 <para>The definition of <quote>leave the web site</quote> is vague.
 122 Some cookies may hang around for a little while after you are no
 123 longer viewing any pages on a particular web site.  This is
 124 normal.</para>
 125 </note>
 126 </listitem>
 127 </varlistentry>
 128 </variablelist>
 129
 130 <para>The section for <guilabel>Default Policy</guilabel> sets some
 131 further options that are mutually exclusive &mdash; you can choose only one
 132 of these options as the default, but you are free to set a different
 133 option for any specific web server.</para>
 134
 135 <variablelist>
 136 <varlistentry>
 137 <term><guilabel>Ask for confirmation</guilabel></term>
 138 <listitem>
 139 <para>If this option is selected, you will be asked for confirmation
 140 every time a cookie is stored or retrieved. You can selectively accept
 141 or reject each cookie. The confirmation dialog will also allow you to
 142 set a domain specific policy, if you do not want to confirm each
 143 cookie for that domain.</para>
 144 </listitem>
 145 </varlistentry>
 146 <varlistentry>
 147 <term><guilabel>Accept all cookies</guilabel></term>
 148 <listitem>
 149 <para>If this option is selected, all cookies will be accepted without
 150 asking for confirmation.</para>
 151 </listitem>
 152 </varlistentry>
 153 <varlistentry>
 154 <term><guilabel>Reject all cookies</guilabel></term>
 155 <listitem>
 156 <para>If this option is selected, all cookies will be rejected without
 157 asking for confirmation.</para>
 158 </listitem>
 159 </varlistentry>
 160 </variablelist>
 161
 162 <para>In addition to the default policy for handling of cookies, which you can
 163 set by selecting one of the three options described above, you can also set
 164 policies for specific host domains using the controls in the <guilabel>Domain
 165 Specific</guilabel> group.</para>
 166
 167 <para>The Ask, Accept, or Reject policy can be applied to a specific
 168 domain by clicking on the <guibutton>New...</guibutton> button, which
 169 brings up a dialog. In this dialog, you can type the name of the
 170 domain (with a leading dot), then select the policy you want to apply
 171 to this domain. Note that entries may also get added while you are
 172 browsing, if the default policy is to ask for confirmation, and you
 173 choose a general policy for a specific host (for example, by selecting
 174 <guilabel>Reject all cookies from this domain</guilabel> when asked to
 175 confirm a cookie).</para>
 176
 177 <para>You can also select a specific host domain from the list and click the
 178 <guibutton>Change</guibutton> button to choose a different policy for that
 179 domain than the one shown in the list.</para>
 180
 181 <para>To delete a domain specific policy, choose a domain from the list, and
 182 then click the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button. The default policy will
 183 apply to domains which have been deleted from the list.</para>
 184
 185 </sect2>
 186
 187 <sect2 id="cookie-management">
 188 <title>Management</title>
 189
 190 <para>In the <guilabel>Management</guilabel> tab you can browse and selectively
 191 delete cookies that have been set in the past.</para>
 192
 193 <para>In the upper part of this dialog, you can see a list of domains displayed
 194 as a tree. Click on the little <guiicon>+</guiicon> next to a domain to see all
 195 cookies that have been set for this particular target domain. If you select one
 196 of these cookies, you will notice that its contents will show up in the frame
 197 <guilabel>Cookie Details</guilabel> below.</para>
 198
 199 <para>By clicking the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button you can now delete the selected
 200 cookie. Click <guibutton>Delete All</guibutton> to delete all cookies stored.</para>
 201
 202 <para>Choose <guibutton>Reload List</guibutton> to reload the list
 203 from your hard disk. You might want to do this if you have had the
 204 module open and are testing web sites, or have made many changes in the
 205 module itself.</para>
 206
 207 </sect2>
 208
 209 </sect1>
 210
 211 </article>