Allow Cookies / Sessions or Add to Trusted Sites

Question

I'm having a difficulty with a website for work. Some users of Internet Explorer and Safari are not storing anything in their session / cookies and I need to find a way to store information while they are on the site.

Is there a way with php/javascript/something else to request they add the site to their trusted sites or to allow cookies / sessions at all? Would having a certificate of any kind do this? Does anyone have any other suggestions of ways to do this? It would need to be an array of items to be stored and can't be stored in post / get formats as it involves leaving the page to go to a third party and then coming back to the page.

In case you're concerned, it's all above board in terms of what it's doing. It's all to integrate with a 3rd party system that doesn't allow the flexibility that the site requires when it comes to rules.

For clarification: The session has been used to store the information but a lot of complaints were coming back from people using internet explorer saying that the rules applied weren't working. These are dependent on information being stored to the session. After testing we found that sessions weren't storing on a lot of internet explorer browsers. To combat this we have tried storing a key to a cookie and then using this to reference a database which stored this information instead. However, we are finding that with higher security settings these aren't working also. It needs to function without having them log in. This is the issue.

--UPDATE-- I have tested and it appears that if a site has an SSL cert applied to it the issue doesn't exist. Will need to confirm but that may be the answer.

Answer 1

I was unable to find a way to help someone change their safe sites to include my site easily but an SSL cert seems to achieve this for me. On testing the site it worked perfectly so long as it had and SSL.

Answer 2

I do not understand your scenario as I have never had such a problem where cookies are not saved in IE or safari, these are essentials and default with a browser so there must be some software which is effecting these browsers.

On the other hand, the last case scenario I would save everything in the database which would be more ideal if you are coming and going through third party websites. Which since you are storing an array of items I am assuming you are doing an e-commerce website and you need to go to the payment gateway and come back to continue with the checkout.

If that is your scenario I will go with the database and not the cookies.