What is a cookie?
Cookies are small files that websites place on your computer's hard drive when you first visit them.
Think of a cookie as an identification card that is uniquely yours. Its job is to tell the site when you return. Although they can be misused in cases where they contain personal data, cookies are not in themselves malicious.
Most websites, including Microsoft, use cookies. Cookies tell us how often you visit our site, which helps us to know what information is of interest to you. This way, we can give you more content that interests you and less content that doesn't.
Cookies can help you be more efficient. Have you ever put an item in a virtual shopping cart on an online store and gone back a few days later and seen that your item is still there? That's just one example of how cookies work.
Cookies enable you to store preferences and user names, register products and services and personalize pages.
But if you've never saved or left any personal information on a site, then the server simply knows that someone with your cookie has returned to the website. It knows nothing else.
What is Localstorage?
Localstorage is a technique for recording data in a web browser.
Unlike cookies, this data does not pass automatically between your browser and the server that created it, but can be transmitted to the server via a javascript request, for example.
The special feature of localstorage is that it is stored indefinitely on your browser (there is no programmed deletion of data).
This storage is generally used to optimize website performance. However, it can also be used to replace or supplement cookies. All uses of Localstorage for tracking users and/or storing personal data are therefore listed here.
Mandatory functional cookies