Type: Boolean
Returns True if the visitor has their cookies enabled, False if their cookies have been disabled.
Note: You must call the GetExtPropertiesEx method before checking the value of this property. This property requires either the Professional or Enterprise Edition of BrowserHawk.
Tip: See the cookies.asp file in your BrowserHawk installation directory for a detailed example on detecting disabled cookies.
For users with IE 5.0 and higher, BrowserHawk can also detect the difference between disabled session cookies Vs. disabled persistent cookies. Session cookies are cookies that are destroyed when the browser is closed. Persistent cookies are cookies that are stored on the user’s machine for a period of time as set by the cookie.
To check for disabled session cookies, pass in "cookie_sess" to SetExtProperties prior to calling GetExtPropertiesEx. If the user has session cookies disabled, the CookiesEnabled property will be set to False regardless of whether persistent cookies are enabled.
To check for disabled persistent cookies, pass in "cookie_perm" to SetExtProperties prior to calling GetExtPropertiesEx. If the user has persistent cookies disabled, the CookiesEnabled property will be set to False regardless of whether session cookies are enabled.
To check for both disabled session and persistent cookies, pass in "cookie_sess, cookie_perm" to SetExtProperties, or "cookie_both", prior to calling GetExtPropertiesEx. If the user has either session or persistent cookies disabled (or both types are disabled), the CookiesEnabled property will be set to False. If you asked BrowserHawk to check for both disabled session and persistent cookies, and CookiesEnabled is returned as False, you can determine the reason why they failed the cookie test by checking the value of the cookieCheckType property as follows:
1 = persistent cookies are disabled
2 = session cookies are disabled
3 = both permanent and session cookies are disabled
With IE versions prior to 5.0, and any version of Netscape and Opera browsers, there is no difference between disabled session Vs. persistent cookies. This is because IE 5.0 and higher are the only browsers that allow enabled/disabled status to be set differently for each cookie type. Therefore it is irrelevant whether you pass in "cookie_sess" or "cookie_perm" for this check (or "cookie_both") because BrowserHawk will check the browser the same way. In this case all the various cookie check options are synonymous.
Example 1:
This code snippet enforces that any IE 5+ has both session and persistent cookies enabled, and any non-IE 5+ browser (such as IE 4.01 or any Netscape/Opera browser) has cookies enabled (these browser do not allow session and persistent cookies to be disabled separately). If cookies are not enabled the user is redirected to a nocookies.asp page.
<% set bhObj = Server.CreateObject("cyScape.browserObj")
bhObj.SetExtProperties "cookie_both"
bhObj.GetExtPropertiesEx
if bhObj.CookiesEnabled = False then
response.redirect "/nocookies.asp"
end if %>
<html> … content for users with cookies enabled goes here … </html>
Example 2:
This code snippet enforces that any IE 5+ has session cookies enabled (regardless of whether persistent cookies are enabled), and any non-IE 5+ browser (such as IE 4.01 or any Netscape/Opera browser) has cookies enabled. If cookies are not enabled the user is redirected to a nocookies.asp page.
<% set bhObj = Server.CreateObject("cyScape.browserObj")
bhObj.SetExtProperties "cookie_sess"
bhObj.GetExtPropertiesEx
if bhObj.CookiesEnabled = False then
response.redirect "/nocookies.asp"
end if %>
<html> … content for users with cookies enabled goes here … </html>
Example 3:
This code snippet enforces that any IE 5+ has persistent cookies enabled (regardless of whether session cookies are enabled), and any non-IE 5+ browser (such as IE 4.01 or any Netscape/Opera browser) has cookies enabled. If cookies are not enabled the user is redirected to a nocookies.asp page.
<% set bhObj = Server.CreateObject("cyScape.browserObj")
bhObj.SetExtProperties "cookie_perm"
bhObj.GetExtPropertiesEx
if bhObj.CookiesEnabled = False then
response.redirect "/nocookies.asp"
end if %>
<html> … content for users with cookies enabled goes here … </html>
Tip: When testing for both disabled session and persistent cookies, you can use the CookieCheckType property to determine why a user failed the cookie test (for example, session cookies were enabled but persistent cookies were not, etc.).
Special notes for this property:
If you have a load balanced web farm you must set the CookieDomain property to your root domain (i.e. "mycompany.com") prior to calling GetExtPropertiesEx. Otherwise BrowserHawk will detect cookies as being disabled, even if enabled.
When testing your code to ensure the cookie detection works as you have applied it to your site, you will likely be switching your browser back and forth from accepting to rejecting cookies. Each time you change your settings, be sure to delete your cookies, clear your history, close your browser, and reopen it. While this is obviously not needed for detection in the "real world", you may experience inconsistent testing results otherwise due to previous tests.
When checking for disabled cookies, BrowserHawk first checks to see if the browser is even capable of supporting cookies in the first place, before testing whether they are enabled or not. This way code execution is efficient as possible, and there is no need for you to perform this checking on your own before calling this method. Likewise there is no longer a need to check the BrowserHawk Cookies property, since that property only indicates whether a browser is capable of supporting cookies and not whether they are disabled.
See Also: