When were cookies first developed, and what was their initial purpose?

• A. Developed in 1995 to save users' settings on websites and monitor how visitors interacted with sites.
• B. Developed in 1994 to save users' settings on websites and monitor how visitors interacted with sites.
• C. Developed in 1990 to store preferences.
• D. Developed in 1994 to monitor server performance.

Answer: (B)

Cookies came into being in 1994 as a way to cope with HTTP’s stateless nature. They are small data pieces stored in your browser that let a site remember you across pages. The original aim was to save user settings and preferences (like login status or language) and to keep track of what a user did on a site—such as items placed in a shopping cart—so the experience could be continuous rather than starting from scratch on each page. This aligns with the idea that they were created to save settings and monitor how visitors interacted with sites. The other options either cite the wrong year or describe purposes (like monitoring server performance) that weren’t why cookies were developed.