Cookies are small files a site stores in your browser, and they are how a page remembers anything at all between one request and the next. Here is what CookieGrove uses them for, one category at a time.
When this page changes
Expect this list to move over time. It is revised whenever the underlying services change, and the revision date sits at the top of the page.
What we use
- Necessary. Make the site work: page delivery, security, your cookie choice itself. The site cannot function without them.
- Analytics. Google Analytics, in aggregate: which pages get read, how people arrive. No name attached.
- Advertising. Google AdSense may set cookies to choose and cap the ads you see.
How long they stay
Duration is not uniform. What the site needs to work is discarded on exit; what measures and advertises stays until it expires or you delete it.
The cookies by name
- _ga and _gid come from Google Analytics and exist to tell browsers apart when counting visits.
- __gads and __gpi come from Google AdSense, which uses them to pick ads and limit repeats.
- wordpress_test_cookie and the wp-settings-* family are WordPress internals: a capability check and your display preferences.
- comment_author_* appears only after you comment, and only so the form is pre-filled the next time.
To be explicit about the limits: no cookie described here accesses your device beyond the browser, follows you into other apps, or is passed to a data broker. None is designed to identify you personally.
Do Not Track
Browser signals such as Do Not Track are not honoured consistently across the web because there is no agreed standard for what they oblige a site to do. We rely on the cookie controls described above, which do have a defined effect.
Asking first
Non-essential cookies wait for your answer where the law requires one. That answer has to be stored somewhere, so it lives in a cookie of its own. Delete it and the question comes back on your next visit.
Opting out
- Advertising preferences are managed at adssettings.google.com, and the setting follows you across every site that uses Google ads.
- Measurement can be switched off for good with Google’s opt-out add-on, at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
- Browser settings remain the blunt instrument: block, clear, or refuse per site, with no cooperation needed from us.
Content from elsewhere
An embedded player or map is served by its own operator, and it can set cookies when it loads. Refusing third-party cookies in your browser is what stops that.
How to say no
The decision is yours and it is made in the browser, not here. Clearing the measurement and advertising cookies costs you nothing; clearing the technical ones costs you a working page.
Contact
Questions go to the contact page.