What is the purpose of session cookies?

Session cookies are utilized primarily to manage users' active sessions on a website. They play a vital role in maintaining the state of a user’s interaction while they navigate through different pages during a single visit. Unlike permanent cookies, session cookies are temporary and are deleted once the user closes their browser. This functionality is essential for processes such as remembering items in a shopping cart during an online shopping session, keeping a user logged in as they move through various sections of a site, or tracking in-progress forms.

The other options align with different cookie types or functionalities. For instance, permanent cookies would be responsible for storing user preferences over a longer term, which is different from the transient nature of session cookies. Tracking long-term user behavior typically involves analytics cookies that gather data over multiple sessions, whereas session cookies only hold information relevant to a specific browsing session. Enhancing the security of email accounts is unrelated to the primary function of session cookies; different security measures, such as encryption and two-factor authentication, are employed for that purpose.