Re: Re: Digest Authentication

on 23/08/02 4:19 PM, Seairth Jacobs (seairth@seairth.com) wrote: >> Cookies are not a bad thing. I don't know your reasons but it seems that >> some people have a sort of irrational alergy to cookies as if they >> contain a sort of disease. > > There is a simple reason for avoiding cookies: users can (and do) reject > them. Therefore, they are not a reliable method of maintaining a session. > Sure, you can put a sign on the front door that says "cookies required", but > some people will actually choose not to enter (which I don't want). The simple fact is that whilst more and more people are accepting them, and fewer browser reject them by default, there will always be a portion of the community who can't use them, and probably shouldn't Particularly those on shared computers, public computers, net cafes, libraries, etc etc. If you use them (as I do on a few sites), you just have to accept that fact. In the case of Manuel's site, the primary user groups are programmers, more than likely on their own computer, with everything available. He can live with the maybe 0.5% of his users who are cookie paranoid. But in the case of a site which is guaranteed to have a more even demographic, they'd have to seriously think about the issues in turning people away. Simple. If you can live with people leaving, use cookies. If you can't, as is the case with most sites, then look to URL based sessions, or the trans-sid option. Justin