Cookie policy
Everything this site stores on your device, who sets it, why, and how to change your mind.
Last updated .
Two categories, and there is no third. Whatever this page calls a cookie also covers local storage and any other way of keeping data on your device, because the law that governs them makes no distinction and neither should a policy.
Strictly necessary
These are set by this site, stay on your device, and are never transmitted to us or to anyone else. They are exempt from the consent requirement because the site cannot do what you asked without them — including, in the second case, remembering that you said no.
| Name | Kind | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
app-theme | Local storage | Remembers whether you chose the light theme, the dark theme, or to follow your system setting | Until you clear the site's data |
app-consent | Local storage | Records your advertising answer so it can be honoured and so you are not asked again on every page | Treated as lapsed after 12 months, then you are asked again |
Neither is a cookie in the technical sense: nothing is attached to a request and nothing is sent to the server. They are listed here anyway, because what matters to you is what is on your device, not which browser API put it there.
Analytics
Google Analytics 4 sets these, and only after you have agreed. Until you do — and permanently, if you say no — no analytics script is loaded at all: there is no reduced or cookieless mode running in the background, and no request reaches Google. The cookieless page counts described in the privacy policy are a different thing entirely, stored on our own server, and they set nothing on your device.
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga | This site, for Google Analytics | Distinguishes one browser from another, so repeat visits are counted as one visitor rather than several | 2 years |
_ga_<id> | This site, for Google Analytics | Keeps the state of the current visit, so a series of page views is recorded as one session | 2 years |
These are first-party cookies: your browser sets them on this domain, and their contents are sent to Google by the analytics script. Declining, or withdrawing consent below, stops the script from loading; a browser that already holds them can clear them in its own settings.
Advertising
These are set by Google, not by us, and only after you have agreed. Until you do — and permanently, if you say no — every Google advertising signal on this site is set to denied, and no advertising script runs at all where the site has no advertising account configured.
Google decides these names and durations and can change them. The list below is Google's own, checked on 6 September 2026; the authoritative and current version is on Google's cookies page. Which companies may set them — Google, and the ad technology partners it serves through — is on the advertising partners page, with a link to each.
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
IDE | doubleclick.net (Google) | Shows Google ads on sites that are not Google's own, and personalises them where that is switched on | 13 months in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK; 24 months elsewhere |
id | doubleclick.net (Google) | Used instead of the above when ad personalisation is turned off, to remember that preference | 13 months in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK; 24 months elsewhere |
__gads | This site's domain (Google) | Lets the site show Google ads, and measures interactions with them | 13 months |
DSID | doubleclick.net (Google) | Recognises a signed-in Google user so their own ads personalisation setting is respected | 2 weeks |
NID | google.com | Shows ads in Google's own services and personalises them; reached from this site when a Google advertising script loads | 6 months after last use |
What is not here
No analytics cookie, because there is no analytics script. The site's statistics are daily counters with no identifier of any kind — the detail is in the privacy policy. No social media button, no embedded video, no comment system, no live chat, no affiliate tracker, no A/B testing tool and no fingerprinting. Each of those would set something on your device, and each has been left out rather than disclosed.
Changing your answer
Your answer is stored only in this browser, so it has to be given again on another device or after clearing site data. You can change it here at any time, and rejecting is always one press, exactly like accepting.
You can also delete anything already stored through your browser's own settings, usually under privacy or site data, and you can block cookies entirely there. Doing so will not break this site: the theme falls back to your system setting and the consent banner reappears, because without its record there is nothing to say you have already answered.
Separately from this site, you can turn off ad personalisation across Google's services in Google's Ads Settings, and opt out of a wider set of vendors at aboutads.info or Your Online Choices.
Changes
If a new cookie or a new vendor is ever introduced, this page is updated first and the consent record is invalidated, so you are asked again rather than treated as having already agreed to something that did not exist when you answered.