Cookie alternatives

[Joe Thomas]

Hal wrote:

[Summary of the Cookie Situation, including an interesting proposal
about client-side shopping carts that could replace some uses of
cookies.]
 
> (Given the difficulties in creating new protocols for this kind of
> support, I think a step in the right direction would be to change the
> user interface so that cookies are only sent upon user request.  Maybe
> you have to shift-click or use some other key modifier to send a cookie.
> Then shopping pages could ask you to shift-click the buy button to add
> the item to your shopping cart.)

Neat idea, but it might be hard to get many users to understand the
interface.  I'm surprised no one's mentioned that this week's beta of
Netscape Navigator (3.0b5, available in U.S. or export strength) has a
configuration option that let's you see an alert box before your browser
accepts a cookie.  It's a little hard to find...  (Note to Jeff W. or
other Netscape folks:  maybe this should move from Network: Protocols to
Security: General.  Makes more sense to keep all the "Show an Alert
Before" choices in one place.)

Joe