Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with Perplexity’s cookies. It’s something I’ve been meaning to check out, and I finally got around to it. I’ll walk you through what I did, step by step.
Firing up the Browser
First things first, I opened up my browser. Nothing fancy, just the usual one I use every day. I then headed over to the Perplexity website.
Getting into DevTools
Once the page loaded, I right-clicked anywhere on the page and hit “Inspect” or “Inspect Element” – whichever option shows up. This opened up the developer tools. You know, that panel that usually pops up at the bottom or side of your screen with all the code and stuff.
Finding the Cookies
In the DevTools, there are a bunch of tabs. I looked for the one that says “Application”. Clicked on that. Then, on the left-hand side, there’s a section called “Storage,” and under that, you’ll see “Cookies.” I clicked on the Perplexity domain listed there.
Checking Out the Cookie List
After clicking on the Cookies data, right away I show up a list, and see their names, value, and others information.
- ppid:It looks like a unique ID.
- session:related to my current visit.
- Other cookies:also have other data,I did not recognize.
Experimenting a Bit
I was curious, So, I copied some value of cookie, and saved in to a text file. I just wanted to see if I could potentially use them later, maybe for scripting or something. I’m not sure yet, but it’s always good to have the data.
Clearing the Cookies (Just to See)
Then, for kicks, I decided to clear all the Perplexity cookies. You can usually do this by right-clicking in the cookie list and selecting “Clear” or something similar. Once I did that, I refreshed the Perplexity page. As expected, it was like I was visiting the site for the first time – I was logged out, and any personalized settings were gone.
Wrapping Up
That’s pretty much it! It wasn’t a super deep dive, but I learned a bit about how Perplexity uses cookies. I have some ideas about how I might use this info in the future, maybe for some personal projects. I enjoyed playing around with it, and it’s always cool to see what’s going on under the hood of a website you use regularly.
