Jargon buster

The web can be confusing, and we’ve all come across some terms that don’t make much sense. Like cookies. Or IP addresses. Or spyware. We’ve made a list of technical words and explained them here as simply and accurately as we can.

Cookie

A cookie (technically, an HTTP cookie) is a small file stored by your web browser. It looks like a lot of numbers, letters and symbols strung together. A cookie records users’ preferences. For example, at Google we use them to remember whether a user wants his search results in English or French, or if he wants to use a SafeSearch filter.

IP address

An IP (internet protocol) address is a number assigned to a device connected to the internet. Websites use this to send the information you’ve requested back to your computer, rather than a different computer, down the street or halfway around the world.

Since these numbers are usually assigned in country-based blocks, an IP address can often be used to identify the country, state, and city from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. Unlike your home address, though, most people’s IP addresses are dynamically assigned—they change regularly.

Browser

This is the program on your computer that you use to visit websites. Popular browsers include Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera. www.whatbrowser.org

Phishing

Phishing is a type of online fraud where someone tries to trick the victim into revealing sensitive details such as a username, password or credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Malware

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. It is a general term used by computer professionals for many forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software and can include:

Virus:

a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer

Worm:

a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other computers on the network

Spyware:

malware that collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge

Adware:

any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer

Trojan horse:

a destructive program that masquerades as an application, the software initially appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to installation, but steals information or harms the system

Interest-based ads

Ads that are based on interest categories inferred by previous browsing activity (sites you visited in the past) rather than being based on the content of the web page where the ads are found.

Log

When you interact with a website, the computer hosting the website may keep a record of the interaction, like a receipt. The record is called a log.

Encryption

The process of obscuring information so that only authorized users can access it.

Personal information

Information that can personally identify someone, such as their name, email address or billing information, or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information.

Spam

The abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.