Even though the reading was very long and a bit repetitive, I feel like a learned a lot about things all of us do on the internet every day. For example, I visit various websites every day but had no idea how the technology behind it worked.
The three main things I took away from this reading were about cookies, browser extensions, and the importance of an updated browser. Therefore, I’m going to focus on those three things.
1. Cookies
Honestly, before reading this I thought cookies were spyware or something similar that could harm your computer. I kind of just assumed that because every once in a while if my computer was running slowly my Dad would tell me to clear out my cookies.
I had no clue that the reason Netflix and other websites remember my preferences and history is because of the little tidbits of information or “cookies” that are sent to my computer from these sites.
Now I know that I can actually manage my cookies instead of just deleting all of them at once. I can keep cookies from websites I trust and visit frequently, and delete cookies from sketchy or unimportant websites.
2. Browser Extensions
This was another foreign term to me. The only browser extension I currently have is from Pinterest so that I can “pin” something from whatever website I’m browsing at any time. This extension is extremely convenient, but I wasn’t aware that it was a type of browser extension.
Because this reading was obviously geared towards Google Chrome (which I use), I followed the instructions to get to the browser extension gallery and have now downloaded a couple new things. For example, I downloaded the Pocket extension to save interesting webpages for later and the Screenshot extension to make taking screenshots on my PC easier. A lot of these extensions are free and really useful. I’m definitely going to have to play around with that some more.
3. The Importance of an Updated Browser
Before reading this I knew it was somewhat important to keep my browser up to date just so that it would run faster, but I didn’t know all the other important factors. I didn’t know that having an updated browser can protect my computer from malware and other harmful software. Also, I didn’t know that people with old browser versions slows down the web for everyone.
I like how the authors included that link to check and see if your browser was up to date. Apparently I’ve been using Chrome 29 which is the most up-to-date version of Chrome so go me I suppose.
The only criticism I have about this reading was that it was written by Google Chrome workers so the advice and information was obviously biased towards using Google Chrome and other Google products. They did mention Internet Explorer and Firefox but they obviously tried to play up the features of Google Chrome and advertise it a bit which was kind of annoying in an informative read.
Overall, I thought this reading was useful and informative even though it was a little bit too long to capture one’s attention the entire time.