web session

Overview

A web session is the period of time between when a web site user authenticates her/his identity and when the web server decides to stop remembering that the authentication has taken place (typically leading to a "your session has timed out" message). This is done for a number of reasons, primarily security; many web sites are overzealous about their implementation, however, e.g. timing out a shopping cart session when no personal information has been entered yet, or timing out an online banking session when the user has been busily downloading check images the whole time.

Links

Commentary

• 2008-04-15 Your Session Has Timed Out by Jeff Atwood