What are cookies?
Cookies are small files which are stored on a user’s computer. They are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website, and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.
What is the purpose of cookies?
PCookies are a convenient way to carry information from one session on a website to another, or between sessions on related websites, without having to burden a server machine with massive amounts of data storage. Storing the data on the server without using cookies would also be problematic because it would be difficult to retrieve a particular user’s information without requiring a login on each visit to the website.
If there is a large amount of information to store, then a cookie can simply be used as a means to identify a given user so that further related information can be looked up on a server-side database. For example the first time a user visits a site they may choose a username which is stored in the cookie, and then provide data such as password, name, address, preferred font size, page layout, etc. – this information would all be stored on the database using the username as a key. Subsequently when the site is revisited the server will read the cookie to find the username, and then retrieve all the user’s information from the database without it having to be re-entered.
List of cookies on this website
Cookie name | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_utma | 2 years | Google Analytics – stores each user’s amount of visits, and the time of the first visit, the previous visit, and the current visit |
_utmz | 6 months | Google Analytics – stores where a visitor came from (search engine, search keyword, link) |
_ga | 2 years | Google Analytics – Used to distinguish users |
d5d62940f454979c965046f787232a51 | session | User session identifier |
cebed48ce07c01e7fba6831ee8925b5f | session | User session identifier |
cc_cookie_accept | 1 year | stores language selection |
Cookies, which are used on this website are not harmful in any way. Cookies are allowing basic functionallity of this website and help us understand, which information is most useful for visitors.
Consent
By using our website you agree to our use of cookies as described in our cookie policy.
Managing cookies
Most internet browsers allow you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block all cookies (or just third-party cookies) or warn you before a cookie is stored on your device. You can disable Google Analytics tracking on this link.