This page explains what cookies are, which ones this website uses, and how you can control them from your own browser. It is written in plain language and is meant to be read by anyone, not only by people with a technical background.
What a cookie is
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your computer, tablet or phone. It contains a short piece of information, such as a random identifier or a setting you have chosen. When you come back to the same site, the browser sends that file back, and the site can recognise the visit and behave accordingly.
Cookies cannot read the rest of your hard drive, cannot run programs and cannot carry viruses. What they can do is remember things, and that is exactly why they are useful and why they are also regulated.
Why this site uses them
- To keep the site working: remembering that you have already accepted this notice, or keeping a session open if you log in.
- To remember preferences such as language or display options, so you do not have to set them again on every visit.
- To measure traffic in aggregate: how many people arrive, which pages they read, how long they stay, and which articles are worth expanding.
- To show advertising and to limit how often the same advert is repeated to the same visitor.
The main categories
By who sets them. First-party cookies are placed by this domain. Third-party cookies are placed by an outside service whose content is loaded on the page, such as an analytics or advertising provider.
By how long they last. Session cookies are deleted as soon as you close the browser. Persistent cookies stay for a set period, which may be days, months or longer, until they expire or you remove them.
By what they are for. Strictly necessary cookies are the ones without which the site cannot function. Preference cookies remember your choices. Analytics cookies produce visit statistics. Advertising cookies are used to select and cap the adverts you see.
Cookies you may find on this website
- WordPress. The publishing system behind this site sets a small number of cookies for comment forms and, for registered users only, for login sessions. Ordinary visitors who never log in and never comment will not receive them.
- Consent notice. One cookie records that the notice about cookies has already been shown and answered, so it is not displayed again on every page.
- Caching. The page cache may use a cookie to decide whether a visitor should be served a stored copy of a page or a freshly generated one.
- Google Analytics. Third-party cookies that count visits and page views. The reports we see are aggregated and are not used to identify individual readers.
- Google AdSense. Third-party cookies used to serve adverts, to avoid repeating the same advert too often and to detect invalid traffic.
Third-party services set and manage their own cookies under their own policies. If you want the full detail for the Google services listed above, the relevant terms are published by Google itself and can be reviewed and adjusted from your Google account settings.
How to see, block or delete cookies
Every browser lets you inspect the cookies that have been stored, delete them one by one or all at once, and refuse new ones. The setting is usually found under privacy or site data:
- Chrome: Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies and Site data.
- Firefox: Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Cookies and Site Data.
- Safari: Settings, then Privacy, where you can block cookies and manage stored website data.
- Edge: Settings, then Cookies and site permissions.
Most browsers also offer a private or incognito window, which keeps cookies only until that window is closed. That is a quick way to browse without leaving anything behind, although it does not make the visit anonymous to the sites themselves.
What happens if you turn them off
Blocking every cookie will not stop you reading this site, but some things stop working smoothly. The notice about cookies may appear on every single page, preferences will not be remembered between visits, and login and comment forms may refuse to complete. Advertising will still be shown; it will simply be less relevant and more repetitive.
Changes to this page
The services a website depends on change over time, and so does the list of cookies they set. This page is reviewed when that happens, so the version you are reading now may differ from the one you saw before. If you have a question about anything described here, you can contact us through the address published on this site.